
THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT ERECTED 1910. 



The Proceedings of the 
Dedication of the Soldiers' Monument 

Dover, Massachusetts, June 18, 1910 



TO WHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE EXERCISES OF DEDICATION 

OF THE NEW GRAMMAR SCHOOL HOUSE 

NOVEMBER 12, 1910 

THE UNVEILING OF HEADSTONES TO THE MEMORY 

OF REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS 

MAY 10, 1911 

THE DEDICATION OF THE TABLET ERECTED IN 

MEMORY OF THE INDIANS 

JANUARY 13, 1912 



PRINTED BY THE 

DOVER HISTORICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY 

" 1912 



J 






CONTENTS 

Page 

Dedication of Soldiers' Monument 

Foreword 5 

Invocation. By Rev. William R. Lord 7 

Introductory Address. By Mr. Frank Smith 7 

Unveiling of Monument. By Miss Esther Bond and 

Miss Martha E. Colburn 9 

Address by Governor Eben S. Draper 10 

Original Poem. By Mr. William H. Gardner 14 

Address. Corporal James B. Gardner 15 

Original Poem. By Rev. Albert H. Plumb 20 

Address. By Mr. Worthington C. Ford 21 

Address. By Commander J. Willard Brown 24 

Dedication of Grammar School House 

Devotional Exercise. By Rev. William R. Lord 27 

Address of Welcome. By Mr. Richard H. Bond 28 

Report of Building Committee. 

By Mr. Walter P. Henderson 29 

Acceptance of Keys. By Mr. Richard H. Bond 30 

Historical Address. By Mr. Frank Smith 31 

Address. By Mr. S. C. Hutchinson 48 

Address. By Prof. George B. Haven 49 

Address. By C. A. Prosser, Esq 51 

Unveiling of Revolutionary Headstones 

, Unveiling of Headstones. By Miss Sarah Smith 53 

Invocation. By Rev. William R. Lord 53 

Address. By Ambassador Curtis Guild 54 

Original Hymn. By Mr. Burges Johnson " 59 

Dedication of Bronze Tablet 

Introductory Address. By Mr. Augustin H. Parker. 61 

Invocation. By Rev. William R. Lord 61 

3 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Unveiling of Tablet. By Miss Antoinette Chickering 62 

Historical Address. By Mr. Frank Smith 62 

Original Poem. By Mr. William H. Gardner 73 

Address. By Rev. James De Normandie, D. D 74 

Original Hymn. By Miss Kate Louise Brown 78 

Subscribers to Publication Fund 79 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facine Page 

Soldiers' Monument Frontispiece 

Grammar School House 7 

Headstones to Revolutionary Soldiers 53 

Bronze Tablet and Bowlder 61 



FOREWORD. 

The first agitation for the erection of a soldiers' monument 
goes back to a time soon after the close of the Civil War. As 
early as 1875 the question was discussed and strongly advocated 
by Ansel K. Tisdale, a Dover veteran of the Civil War. The sub- 
ject was kept alive through the years by Mr. Tisdale and later 
had the active support of George L. Howe, Jedediah W. Higgins, 
and other residents. 

Some years ago a nucleus for the erection of a soldiers' monu- 
ment was formed by setting aside a part of the annual appro- 
priation made by the town for the observance of Memorial Day. 
The question of the erection of a monument took definite shape 
in 1909, when Irving Colburn, Lewis B. Paine, and J. Grant 
Forbes were appointed a Soldiers' Monument Committee. The 
monument fund having steadily grown under the fostering care 
of those especially interested in the project, the town voted at the 
annual March meeting in 1910 to add a sum sufficient to erect a 
dignified monument, the whole matter being put in charge of the 
standing committee. 

Messrs. Richardson, Barott & Richardson were selected as 
architects. Their design of a monument in honor of all the 
soldiers who had represented Dover in the wars of the country 
was accepted by the town, and the contract for building the 
monument was awarded by the Committee to the Holt-Fairchild 
Company of Boston. It was decided to erect the monument on 
the "Old Training Field," which was first used for military pur- 
poses as early as the middle of the 18th century. Here the 
soldiers in the last French and Indian War and the Revolution 
used to assemble, and here the state militia held training days 
until about 1850. 

The monument is placed at the east end of the Training Field, 
near the junction of Dedham and Centre Streets, and is in full 
view of all who come into town from the direction of Needham or 
Dedham. It stands on a granite foundation twelve feet eight 
inches square. The monument comprises a circular shaft, built 
of Westerly granite, three feet two inches in diameter and four- 
teen feet high. The main shaft rests upon a base of Rockport 
granite four feet eight inches square, and is surmounted by a 



FOREWORD 

bronze eagle, an exact copy of an old Roman model. The eagle 
is not only an emblem of our Union but represents the Indian, 
who once roamed over Dover fields, as well. In photographs of 
the American Indians the eagle frequently appears, and is always 
a symbol of courage. 

The total height of the monument is approximately twenty 
feet. Orj the front of the monument is the date of the erection in 
Roman figures encased in the granite, and just below in bronze 
letters the inscription, "Erected by the Town of Dover in Honor 
of Her Soldiers." On the reverse of the monument are inscribed 
in bronze Roman figures the dates of the five wars in which Dover 
soldiers have participated. The monument was erected at an 
expense of $2,500. 

It is an interesting historical fact that the monument rests upon 
the foundation stones of the old parish tavern, which, built in 
1761, entered so largely into the life of the people of the town 
for nearly a century. In the old tavern the soldiers of three 
wars were accustomed to gather. 

The dedicatory exercises were held around the monument in 
the presence of the Governor of the Commonwealth, citizens of 
Dover, and numerous visitors from the surrounding towns. 
Music was furnished by the Natick Brass Band, which escorted 
Governor Draper to the platform. The members of the Grand 
Army Posts of Natick, Needham, and Medfield were especially 
invited guests and were received by a committee comprised of 
Mrs. Maria J. Bean, Mr. William Bell, Mr. and Mrs. W. E. 
Boundford, Mr. John Burns, Mr. and Mrs. Irving Colburn, Miss 
Martha E. Colburn, Mr. Austin S. Kenney, Mr. James G. Mann, 
Mrs. Mary A. Skimmings, Mr. and Mrs. Levi A. Talbot. 

To the great disappointment of all assembled, an approaching 
shower compelled the adjournment, after the unveiling of the 
monument, to the Town Hall, where the remaining exercises 
were held. 

There have been added to the proceedings of the dedication of 
the monument ( 1 ) the exercises in connection with the opening 
of the new Grammar Schoolhouse, erected by tlie town to effect 
a complete consolidation of schools; (2) the unveiling of the 
headstones erected to the memory of Revolutionary soldiers, 
with an abstract of former Governor Guild's eloquent address ; 
and (3) the exercises in connection with the dedication of the 
Tablet erected to the memory of the Indians who made the sur- 
rounding country "a peculiar hunting place." 



DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' 
MONUMENT. 

PROCEEDINGS. 

MUSIC. By the Band. 

The President : An invocation to the Supreme Being, who has 
so wonderfully blessed our fathers in the years that have passed 
in times of war as well as times of peace, will be offered by the 
Rev. William R. Lord. 

INVOCATION. By Rev. William R. Lord. 

O Thou, out of whose purpose and heart has come our Ameri- 
can nation to be one of the larger family of peoples that inhabit 
this earth, we thank Thee for the blessings of national life in the 
hope and growing realization of liberty, equality and fraternity. 
We thank Thee that it is given us, each one, to serve 
our nation in living and sometimes in dying self-sacrifice! 
We thank Thee that today we can raise here this memorial to our 
fathers and brothers who counted not their lives dear, if so be, 
through their offering, we who come after in the generations 
might enter into the inheritance they thus purchased for us! 
And may this memorial pillar while it abides through the years 
and centuries, be ever to us and to those who come after us, a 
reminder of our duty, yea, our privilege, to bend our lives in 
civic struggle for the uplift of the people. 

May we, too, count not our lives dear, if by daily living we can 
overcome political evil and establish justice in our land! 

So now, before Thee and in Thy name, we dedicate this monu- 
mental structure to the sacred memory of our soldier dead. 

Amen. 

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 

By Mr. Frank Smith, President of the Day. 

Fellow Citizens and Friends: When that little company of Eng- 
lish Puritans rowed up the Charles River, in 1636, and founded 
the town of Dedham, they soon set apart a training field and 

7 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

organized, after the fashion of their fatherland, a train-band 
to defend their homes and their lives from Indian attacks. 

When, in 1748, the residents of that part of Dedham which is 
now Dover, gained a corporate existence, they set apart a training 
field like their fathers and organized a train-band or military 
company, that they might be in readiness to help protect the 
colonies from the encroachment of the French and Indians. 
Here on this training field on the morning of April 19, 1775, the 
Dover Company of Minute Men assembled, at the call of a 
messenger, and later marched sixty-six strong, under the com- 
mand of Captain Ebenezer Battelle, on the Lexington Alarm, to 
defend their principles with their lives. 

And one there was — Elias Haven — 
"Who that day would be lying dead, 
Pierced by a British musket ball." 

Here the state militia held training days and an annual muster 
as long as town companies were kept up, and in the trying days 
of the Civil War the "Home Guard"* met here for military 
drill. 

On this old training field, a spot made sacred by tender memo- 
ries and associations, the town of Dover has erected a soldiers' 
monument, the shadow of which almost crosses the graves, in 
yonder cemetery, of three-score soldiers who fought in four of 
the wars of this country. 

We are assembled on this training field this afternoon to dedi- 
cate a monument to the honor of all those who, having lived on 
these broad acres, fought in the years that have passed, for self- 
preservation, for independence, for equal rights, and human 
liberty. 

This monument is erected by the town of Dover as a tribute to 
the dead, a memory to the living, and an emblem of loyalty to 
posterity. 

MUSIC. By the Band. 

The President : In this new** civilization of ours, with its chang- 
ing customs and occupations, few farms remain in the hands of 
descendants beyond the third generation. But happily there are 
exceptions to this rule, and homesteads are sometimes found that 

•We have failed to find a like organization anywhere else In the 
Commonwealth. 

**Sherburne, England, for which the adjoining town of Sherborn was 
named, celebrated in 1905, the twelve hundredth anniversary of her 
settlement. 

8 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

have been in the hands of lineal descendants for ten generations. 
How such homesteads appeal to our imagination, covering, as 
they do, a period of time which includes the history of every in- 
stitution and every event in the entire life of a New England 
community ! 

This monument is to be unveiled in your presence by two 
young ladies who together represent ancestors who took part in 
all the wars, with the exception of the Spanish War, for which 
this monument stands. One of these young ladies, Miss Esther 
Bond, has the honor of being descended in the eighth generation 
from Henry Wilson, the first English settler in this town. Like 
her mother and all the generations back of her, she was born, 
reared, and has always lived on the farm settled by her Puritan 
ancestor, in 1640. 

The other young lady, Miss Martha E. Colburn,* has the honor 
of being descended in the seventh generation from Thomas 
Battelle, at one time town clerk and for many years the school- 
master of Dedham. He settled on the Clay Brook road previous 
to 1667, and his descendants, from that day to this, have been 
prominently connected with the history of Dover. Miss Colburn 
has the further distinction of being descended from Robert 
Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

I have the pleasure of presenting Miss Martha E. Colburn and 
Miss Esther Bond, who will unveil this monument to your gaze 
and that of future generations. 

UNVEILING OF THE MONUMENT. 

The President: In the development of this town, settlements 
were made in different parts of the territory before King 
Philip's War. One of these early settlers was James Draper, the 
Puritan, who settled here previous to 1656, on a farm which ex- 
tended from the Natick to the Medfield line. He has had an 
honored posterity, which is now scattered over this broad land. 
Nearly a century after his settlement here Josiah Richards took 
up his residence on Strawberry Hill. He had seven sons born to 
him in Dover, all of whom took part in one or more engagements 
in the Revolutionary War. One of these sons, Lieut. Lemuel 
Richards, fought in the last French and Indian War, as well as in 
the Revolution. He has a descendant, as well as James Draper, 

•Being the daughter of a Civil War veteran, Miss Colburn was espe- 
cially named to represent the soldiers of the Civil War In the unveil- 
ing of the monument. 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

in the person of the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth, who 
is present to dedicate this monument to his ancestors and your 
ancestors, those men of Dover who have so bravely and so faith- 
fully served in the wars through which this country has passed. 
I have the honor of introducing His Excellency Governor Eben 
Sumner Draper. 

ADDRESS. Governor Draper. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : As your president has 
stated, I am fortunate in having had several ancestors who are 
among those whose deeds are commemorated by the beautiful 
monument which has been unveiled here today. Busy as the 
Governor of this Commonwealth is obliged to be, I should have 
felt that I must decline your invitation to be here except that the 
occasion was worthy of the Governor's presence, and the further 
fact that I had a strong personal desire to come. 

In looking over the records of men from Dover who have 
taken part in the various wars to which the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts has contributed men and money, I find that in the 
wars before the Revolution, and including the Revolution, there 
are some twenty soldiers, many of whom were officers, who were 
members of my own family, and that accounts for my strong 
personal interest in these exercises. 

This monument has been erected by the town of Dover to 
commemorate the services of her citizens in numerous wars. The 
trials and sufferings of the people of this Commonwealth in the 
wars antedating the Revolution were, perhaps, directly greater 
than those of any other time. In the Indian wars the wives and 
children of the citizens were killed, their houses and all their 
property frequently destroyed, and their sufferings were intense ; 
but the sturdy characteristics of the brave men and women of 
those days met and overcame all the difficulties which seemed 
many times to be more than could possibly be borne. 

At that time the people fought for bare existence ; but they 
learned to depend upon each other, and the history of those days 
is full of exploits requiring the greatest heroism and fortitude. 

Later on came the Revolutionary War, and Dover, in common 
with other towns of the Commonwealth, furnished many of her 
best men for service in that war. Many of the important battles 
of that conflict were fought on the soil of Massachusetts, and 
Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill are prominent names in the 
history of the world. 

10 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

The problems which the people of the thirteen original colonies 
had to grapple with at that time were stupendous. Engaged in a 
war with the most powerful nation on earth, without a properly 
constituted national government, the colonists struggled through 
seven years of bitter strife and achieved their independence and 
a glorious victory. 

When this war was concluded, the problems which had to be 
faced by the people were very difficult of settlement. The organi- 
zation of the national government brought many important ques- 
tions to the front for consideration. The colonies were very 
jealous of their rights as states, and it was extremely difficult for 
them to form a national government to which proper powers 
should be delegated, while at the same time they should keep to 
themselves proper powers as sovereign states. 

They dealt successfully with these problems, as they had with all 
preceding ones ; but the question of state rights and national sov- 
ereignty was one on which there were great differences of 
opinion, as indeed there are to this day ; and while no question 
arose immediately to bring out drastic differences between the 
states, political parties separated on these issues and they were 
met in every national election for many years after the Revolu- 
tion. 

The War of 1812 was waged with Great Britain by the 
national government, and the young republic, which had by this 
time become a nation, acquitted itself wonderfully well in that 
great war. 

From that time until 1860, while there were various difficulties 
with other questions, including the war with Mexico, the prin- 
cipal problems with which the people had to do were those of civil 
government, such as any country is obliged to solve, although 
ours were peculiar to ourselves because of the fact that our form 
of government was different from that of other countries ; and 
the question of state rights as opposed to the rights of the na- 
tional government were constantly causing discussion, so that the 
varying opinions on this matter served as the cardinal principles 
of the great political parties of the nation. 

For some years before 1860 the question of the extension of 
slavery had become the great question for discussion in the halls 
of Congress and by the people of the different sections of the 
country. Slavery was an established and recognized institution 
in the Southern states, and its spread into some of the new states 
was urgently championed by the South, and as stoutly resisted 
by the North. With the election of Lincoln in 1860 the crisis 

11 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

came ; Fort Sumter was fired upon ; the Southern people claimed 
the right to secede and establish a nation of their own, and the 
greatest civil war of history began. 

It is not necessary for me to attempt to describe the terrible 
experiences consequent upon that terrible war. We have present 
here today in this audience many veterans who were members of 
the Union army in that great struggle, and I confess that I never 
stand in their presence without the greatest reverence for them 
and the work they accomplished. The hardships they endured, 
the valor they displayed, are a proud heritage of this Common- 
wealth ; and I am delighted to see so many of them here today 
taking part in the dedication exercises of this monument which is 
to such a large extent to commemorate the deeds they performed. 

As a result of that war slavery was abolished ; the right of any 
state to secede was forever crushed ; and after the war had ter- 
minated, the great army of the North, which was made up of vol- 
unteers, was quietly dispersed, the men returned to their homes 
and took up the vocations of business, and the people of the 
country settled down to their ordinary pursuits. The nationality 
of the government was established, but the proper rights of the 
individual states were not destroyed, and the nation began to 
grow with marvellous rapidity. 

From 1865 to 1898 many of the political questions which had 
to be considered by the people were the result of the great war, 
and many new questions were introduced for discussion and set- 
tlement by the enormous increase of immigration of people of all 
nationalities and representatives of different civilizations. 

In 1898 the Spanish War, so-called, came on, which was waged 
for the freedom of Cuba ; and that war brought with it new prob- 
lems to be solved in connection with the government of colonial 
possessions ; but the old problems still continued with us. 

In our earlier wars, up to and including the Revolution, we 
had a homogeneous population, and these questions which have 
lately become so prominent in our political affairs were not of 
such great importance ; but the men of today have to deal with 
the problems of today. 

The past of our nation is secure and great ; the future rests on 
our efforts and those of our children and their children. With all 
the varying elements of our population which are coming to this 
country today in such large numbers, it behooves those of us, 
who by industry, tradition and experience are supposed to know 
what it is to be an American citizen, to do all in our power to see 



12 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

that these new-comers are properly educated so that they, too, 
may be good American citizens. 

Many people come to this country to secure what they call lib- 
erty. They must be taught that liberty is not license, but that it 
guarantees to people a free right to religious worship and free- 
dom of opportunity to improve themselves and become useful 
American citizens. 

In my judgment there is no influence which will be so potent 
for good in dealing with these great questions as that of educa- 
tion ; and it behooves us to see that all people who come to us 
from foreign countries shall be properly educated in what is nec- 
essary for good citizenship. The problems of today are no less 
difficult than those with which our fathers and grandfathers had 
to deal ; but I have faith to believe that the men of today and the 
children of tomorrow will meet these difficulties of the future as 
successfully as did their ancestors of the past, and that this nation 
will continue to grow and maintain its prominent place among 
the nations of the world. 

I have felt it wise to refer to the problems of the present day 
and to call attention to their seriousness in the few remarks that 
I have had to make here ; but I realize that the object of this occa- 
sion is to dedicate this monument to the memory of the men who 
have served so faithfully in all these wars of the past. 

It is fitting that these deeds should be so recognized and that a 
monument of this character should call the attention of all the 
people to the fact that the men of today cherish and respect the 
deeds of their fathers. 

I congratulate you most sincerely on the completion of this 
monument, and I am proud and glad, as the Governor of the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to take part in these exercises 
of dedication of this beautiful monument which so well commemo- 
rates the deeds and valor of the soldiers of Dover in all the wars 
in which they have participated. God save the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts ! 

The President: I say it advisedly, in the presence of this com- 
pany, gathered around this monument dedicated to the valor 
and patriotism of the men of Dover, through two and a half cen- 
turies, that the wives and mothers of this town through all the 
generations that have passed, have been the best product of this 
soil. While no monument will ever be erected to their heroism 
and sacrifice, yet they will ever live in the hearts of their grateful 
descendants. 

13 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

A resident of another town, Mr, William H. Gardner of Win- 
throp, who took his wife from Dover, has contributed an original 
poem to the occasion, which will be read by a daughter of a 
veteran of the Civil War, Mr. Irving Colburn. When in 1862 a 
town meeting was called to raise men for the service, Mr. Col- 
burn was the first man to volunteer. He served for nine months 
in the Massachusetts 44th Infantry. I have the pleasure of pre- 
senting Miss Martha A. Colburn. 

ORIGINAL POEM. By Mr. William H. Gardner. 

THE MEN OF DOVER. 

O, Dover, — green with dale and hill, 

How do our quickened pulses thrill, 

Reading the record of the brave, 

Who gave their lives this land to save. 

From the first call, — when Indian fires, 

Turned many a home to funeral pyres. 

Through Revolution's sacrifice 

And Civil War's dark, bloody guise. 

To that last call of liberty 

When this land set poor Cuba free. 

No matter when the bugle-call 
They were the first in line to fall. 
The men of Dover, — staunch and true, 
Ready their duty e'er to do. 
All patriots, — never asking why, 
They started forth to do or die 
Nor falt'ring ones behind to lag, 
Each man an honor to his flag. 

We of this time in grateful praise 
This shaft of stone in mem'ry raise 
To all the brave souls gone before, — 
The patriots of days of yore. 
O, men of Dover — proud we are, 
Gazing on flaming stripe and star. 
To know that at your country's call. 
You sallied forth and gave up all. 

And now with uncovered head 
The living tribute pay the dead, 
Let us each register a vow. 
As rev'rent here we linger now, 
Whate'er the want, whate'er the need. 
Let us our country's call e'er heed. 
E'en as did Dover men of old. 
Whose hearts were hearts of truest gold. 

14 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

The President: When, in 1861, the Union of States was rent 
asunder, the residents of Dover rallied to the support of the 
Union and with patriotic loyalty aided every measure calculated 
to put down the rebellion. As the men of Dover witnessed the 
spilling of the first blood in the Revolution, so Andrew W. 
Bartlett saw the shedding of the first blood of the Civil War in 
the attack on his Company, of the Massachusetts 6th, in Balti- 
more, April 19, 1861. 

Dover furnished a surplus of nineteen soldiers over and above 
every demand, and she contributed more liberally of her means in 
voluntary contributions than other towns in the vicinity, thus 
nobly sustaining the time honored reputation of the town in all 
times of the country's need. 

I have the pleasure of presenting Mr. James B. Gardner, Cor- 
poral, Company D., 44th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer 
Militia, who has the honor of representing on this occasion the 
Veterans of the Civil War. 

ADDRESS. Corporal James B. Gardner. 

Mr. President, Veterans of the Civil War, Ladies and Gentle- 
men : The programme states that I am to give an address. This 
is a rather high-sounding title for the few words I shall have to 
say. 

When Comrade Colburn kindly invited me to speak for the 
soldiers of the Civil War, I knew it was only because I had been 
secretary of his Regimental Association since its organization. 
I felt it would have been more appropriate had he selected one 
more used to public speaking and who had a better claim to be 
called a "Veteran," not because he would have been more enthu- 
siastic, but solely on account of experience and length of service. 

Some years ago I was astonished to hear my son's teacher 
assert that the Civil War was waged for the abolition of slavery, 
and when I replied that that was the result, and not the cause 
(except proximately), she told me I was mistaken, and showed 
me two school histories in which that was given as the reason 
without any qualification. 

The Civil War was not waged for the abolition of slavery. The 
right to hold slaves was explicitly recognized in the Constitution 
of the United States. At the time of its adoption slavery existed 
to a greater or less degree in almost every state in the Union, but 
at the outbreak of the Rebellion it was confined to Maryland, 
Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and the states South. 

15 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Most of the Northern people, and many of the slave owners 
themselves, believed that slavery was wrong, and although a few 
at the North wished to abolish it by force, the majority recog- 
nized the implied guaranteed right with which they felt they 
could not interfere, but were firm in their determination that the 
slave territory should not be extended. Not until the second 
year of the war was the Emancipation Proclamation issued, and 
then almost entirely for purely military reasons. 

Today, no one, even in the South, would advocate its re-estab- 
lishment ; and with few exceptions the former slave owners them- 
selves recognize that it was a curse wherever it existed. 

The Civil War resulted from the conflict of two opposing civi- 
lizations, which might be called the "Puritan" and the "Cavalier." 
Neither of these understood or sympathized with the other. The 
North, representing the former, regarded the Southerners as a 
hot-headed, arrogant, sporting, braggadocio people ; while the 
South, representing the latter, looked upon the "Yankees" as 
"greasy mechanics," "mudsills," a cowardly, despicable race, 
whose God was the "Almighty Dollar," who could not be driven 
into a fight, and who would cringe under the lash of their South- 
ern masters. The war showed conclusively how each was mis- 
taken in its opinion of the other. Hon. James A. Bryan, an ex- 
Confederate, now Mayor of Newbern, N. C, in a letter I re- 
ceived from him recently, writes that if the North and South had 
known and understood each other twenty-five years before the 
conflict as well as they did twenty-five years after, war between 
the sections would have been impossible. Under the conditions 
it was, as I believe it was called by Horace Greeley, an "irrepres- 
sible conflict." Whether the differences could have then been 
settled without an appeal to arms it is now useless to discuss. 

For many months previous to the passage of the ordinance of 
secession by South Carolina the South had been threatening to 
withdraw from the Union. Few Southerners believed that the 
"Yankees" would fight, and Robert Toombs, of Georgia, made a 
boast that he would call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill. 
Few in the North believed the South to be earnest in their threats, 
notwithstanding it was known that they were collecting arms and 
organizing military companies. They considered it a pure "bluff," 
and could not believe the South would be reckless enough to take 
a step that would inevitably mean war. 

Not until the rebels fired on Sumter did the North realize that 
the South was in earnest. No one in the present generation can 
have the remotest idea of the shock it was to every one in the 

16 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

"Free States." Party differences were instantly forgotten, and 
the cry was, "THE UNION MUST AND SHALL BE PRE- 
SERVED." There were a few, a very few, who were in sym- 
pathy with the South, such men as Vallandigham, of Ohio, 
George B. Loring, of Massachusetts, who made a boast that he 
would raise enough men in Essex County to prevent any troops 
from leaving Massachusetts; Governor Seymour, of New York, 
and some others, but the "Copperheads," as they were called, 
were in an insignificant minority. After the close of the war 
many of them were ready to pose as "patriots," but sometimes the 
people have good memories. The President issued a call for 
troops, and the militia of the several states was hurriedly sent to 
Washington. The attack on Sumter meant war, but hardly any 
one anticipated what a long, costly, and bloody struggle it was to 
prove. 

Many of the best officers of the United States Army decided to 
go with their states. The feeling against these men was very 
bitter. Not till a few years since did I learn that the cadets at 
West Point, and presumably at Annapolis also, had been taught 
that they owed allegiance to their state rather than to the Nation, 
and that this teaching was not changed until some time after the 
close of the war. Since learning this fact I have felt more chari- 
table toward those whom we stigmatized as deserters. 

Undoubtedly the majority of the Southern citizens were not 
originally in favor of secession. Alexander H. Stephens, later 
Vice-President of the Confederacy, strongly opposed the idea, and 
not until the actual outbreak of hostilities did he decide to cast 
his lot with his Southern brethren. General Lee also hesitated 
long before he became identified with the "Lost Cause." There 
were, however, many Southerners who remained true to the 
Union, among them General George H. Thomas, the "Rock of 
Chickamauga," one of the bravest, truest, most loyal of our 
officers, of whom it was said that he never lost a battle. 

In the short time assigned for these exercises it is of course im- 
possible to give even the briefest account of the struggle. Those 
who were not living in the early sixties can learn of it from the 
voluminous literature that has been published, but a complete 
history of the war has not been written, nor do I think it can be 
till most of its participants have passed away. 

For several years after its close the bitter feelings it engen- 
dered remained, and while the South can never forget the "Recon- 
struction Period," neither can the North forgive the horrors of 
the prison pens at Andersonville, Salisbury, and other places. 

17 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

I have been South several times since the war, have met hun- 
dreds of Southerners, and with the exception of a few who were 
not born till after its close, every one has expressed himself glad 
that it resulted as it did. And not only that, but several I have 
met recently, notwithstanding their love and reverence for Gen- 
eral Lee, are as much opposed to placing his statue, clad in a Con- 
federate uniform, in the Capitol of the Nation, as are we who 
wore the Blue. Had he been chosen simply as a representative 
Virginia citizen we might have questioned the taste and judgment 
of those who made the selection, but clad in a rebel uniform, 1 be- 
lieve there is no Union soldier who does not consider the sugges- 
tion an insult to the cause for which we fought. 

I think this incident well illustrates the feeling of most of our 
late opponents : While at Newbern, N. C, about a year ago, 
attending the dedication of the memorial monument which Mas- 
sachusetts erected in the National Cemetery in that city, I carried 
the National Colors. Having to leave the ranks temporarily after 
the procession was formed, I turned to the gentleman immediately 
behind me, one who had been Colonel of a North Carolina regi- 
ment which was opposed to ours in every action in which we were 
engaged, and asked if he would kindly hold the Colors a minute 
or two. "Would you dare trust me with them?" he questioned, 
smilingly. "I will now," I replied, "but I'll be darned if you'd got 
them forty- five years ago without a fight." "Forty-five years 
ago," he answered, "I tried mighty hard to get them. I fought 
you fellows four years, and I wanted to fight you forty. I be- 
lieved in the Confederate cause and am proud of my service. I 
have no apology to offer. I cherish my Confederate flag and my 
Confederate uniform, and I hope my children may. But, thank 
God, Gardner, I've lived long enough to see that I was wrong, 
and not only to see it but to confess it. Today there is no man 
living who is more gratified with the result of the conflict, is more 
loyal to the United States as a Nation, or who venerates the Stars 
and Stripes more than I do." That feeling was echoed by every 
Confederate who heard the conversation, and there were a good 
many standing close by. 

What feeling of antagonism against the North still exists is 
found among the younger generation and among the women, and 
I am glad to say that I think that is rapidly dying out. At the 
reception given us by the Daughters of the Confederacy, while 
we were in Newbern, one pretty, bright young lady said to me, 
"I had no idea you Yankees were such nice men. I've been one 
of the un-reconstructed, but if I meet many more of you, and if 

18 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

they are equal to the samples Massachusetts has sent, I believe 
that I shall become as strong Union as any of you." I might add 
that she was a Miss and not a Mrs. 

One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with this 
war, and one which has been the subject of much comment among 
foreigners, is the rapidity and quietness with which both armies 
disbanded, and the old soldiers returned to the pursuits of civil 
life. It was a revelation to the world at large. Although it is 
traditional that army life unfits one for the routine of civil life, 
very many of our old soldiers are among our leading and promi- 
nent citizens. Especially is this the case in the South, where 
every one at the close of the war was practically destitute. The 
courage, pluck, and phoenix-like determination they have shown 
deserves the highest commendation. Many of our men came 
home crippled and helpless, and not a few have been obliged to 
depend upon charity — no, I cannot use the word charity — for a 
man who was disabled in the service of his country deserves and 
has earned from it an honorable and comfortable support. 

No one can justly claim but that both the State and the Na- 
tional governments have done all and far more than they prom- 
ised. We know there are many cases where more help should 
have been rendered, and we also know there are many more in 
which too much has been given to unworthy claimants. No 
nation ever existed which has treated its old soldiers with more 
generosity and consideration. 

It is not generally known what a large proportion of young 
men com{X)sed our army. General Charles H. Taylor, at a recent 
re-union of my Regimental Association, stated that out of 
2,778,000 soldiers in the Un'on Army (this number included re- 
enlistments) 2,150,000 were 21 years or younger; 1,151,000, 18 
years or younger; and 84,400, 16 years or younger. He added 
that these numbers would have been materially larger had not so 
many of the men belonged to the Ananias Club, of which he said 
he at the time was a member. Today, the average of the surviv- 
ing veterans is not far from three-score years and ten. 

Nearly half a century has passed since the close of the great 
struggle, and today the country is united as it had never been in 
the past. No truer remark was ever made than when General 
Sherman said, "War is Hell !" The tendency of the age is to 
settle all disputes, whether individual, national, or international, 
by arbitration, but there may still arise contentions that can be 
settled only by the stern arbitrament of war. Let us hope and 
pray that none may hereafter arise with us, but should they come, 

19 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

I know that our sons, and our grandsons, and our great-grand- 
sons, will prove themselves as patriotic, and courageous, and self- 
sacrificing as did their fathers in the Revolution and the late 
Civil War. 

The President : A gentleman who has recently come among us 
has offered some original verses, directly bearing on the monu- 
ment which we have dedicated. I have the pleasure of introduc- 
ing the Rev. Albert H. Plumb. 

ORIGINAL POEM. By Rev.. Albert H. Plumb. 

THE RECORD OP DOVER. 

Aye, raise the solid shaft; and let the bird 

Of freedom rest thereon, an emblem true 

Of noble aspiration, courage high, 

Whose wings beat sunward still, athwart the blue. 

The eagle breast, devoid of fear, is type 
Of patriot resolution, in the night 
Of national nativity, the dauntless spirit 
Of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and Right. 

Tricolor, gleam amid the shaded grass 
And floral bloom, above the sleeping-place 
Of other heroes, they who later saved 
Our Union wide, from rending and disgrace. 

Stand, sturdy pillar, through the years. 
Thy stony strength shall speak, like hoary sages, 
To all our sons; Let loyalty be likewise firm. 
Republic! rest upon the Rock of Ages. 

The President : At the time of King Philip's War, the colonists 
were near destruction, but as Dr. Hale once said, their pluck was 
such that they would not send "home for an ounce of powder or 
lead." In the last French and Indian War soldiers from this 
town fought in the battles around Lake Champlain, that at Ticon- 
deroga being the bloodiest battle ever fought on land before or 
since, upon this continent. In the War of 1812, that most un- 
popular war in New England, but which was great in results, and 
which has sometimes been called the War of Independence, the 
men of Dover had their part. 

Dover had her representative in the War with Spain, and one 
of her citizens fought with the gallant Dewey in Manila Bay, 
and in recognition of his services now wears upon his breast a 
Dewey Medal, bestowed by the Congress of the United States. I 

20 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Worthington C. Ford of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, who will represent these wars. 

ADDRESS, Mr. Worthington C. Ford. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The first visitors to 
the shores of New England found them quite thickly populated 
with Indians, such as were in a measure passing from the condi- 
tion of wandering hunters into that of agricultural peoples. In 
less than three years it was as if a sponge had been passed over 
the land, wiping out that population, and leaving only here and 
there a remnant, broken in spirit and rarely exhibiting the desire 
or the energy for war. European settlers came, regarded the 
land as vacant land, made so for their particular benefit. It was 
the act of God in favor of his people. The natives became wards, 
to be educated if possible, to be treated with correction if they 
became restless. To convert them to Christianity formed the aim 
of good men; to get their furs and their lands was the object of 
the majority. Good John Cotton advised from the safe distance 
of Southampton : "Offend not the poor natives, but as you par- 
take in their land, so make them partakers of your precious faith ; 
as you reape their temporalis, so feede them with your spiritualls." 

The advice was taken all too literally. The settlers reaped the 
temporals, real and personal, of the Indians, assisted greatly by 
aquavita, a species of anaesthetics, putting morals to sleep and 
slaying the body. The Indian at close range did not answer to 
the expectations formed of him. The well-intentioned efforts of 
the whites to reclaim him from his savagery were misunderstood ; 
feeling more than he thought, he resented the crowding 
strangers, who took his furs, his lands and his hunting rights, 
and sought to reduce him to a fixed habitation, with habits utterly 
opposed to his customs and traditions. Resentful, he brooded 
upon his wrongs ; powerless in the face of the English, he resorted 
to guile and trickery for revenging his injuries, and that meant 
murder. He came to be classed as vermin, and the awful silence 
that hung over every violated home increased the hatred of the 
settlers against so cruel a foe. Periodically punishment was in- 
flicted, and the nearer punishment came to exterminating the 
red man, the greater the satisfaction. 

The Narragansetts were clearly in the way, and tended to be- 
come a greater menace each year. No matter what the character 
of their chief, Philip, the inevitable impended. Less than fifty 
years after the coming of Winthrop, the decree against the In- 

21 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

dians issued, and a body of one hundred foot and fifty horse was 
to be impressed from the colonial militia, to be ready to march at 
an hour's notice, arms and ammunition complete. Not far from 
this place, on Dedham Plain, the men mustered, where a govern- 
ment proclamation promised that if they played the man, took the 
fort and drove the enemy out of the Narragansett country, they 
should have a gratuity in land, as well as their wages, "Consider 
the difficulties," says the official record, "these brave men went 
through in storming the fort in the depth of winter, and the 
pinching wants they afterwards underwent in pursuing the 
Indians that escaped, through a hideous wilderness famously 
known throughout New England to this day by the name of the 
hungry march ; and if we further consider that until this brave 
though small army thus played the man, the whole country was 
filled with distress and fear, and we trembled in this capital 
Boston itself, and that to the goodness of God to this army we 
owe our fathers' and our own safety and estates, we cannot but 
think that those instruments of our deliverance and safety ought 
to be not only justly but also gratefully and generously rewarded, 
and even with much more than they prayed for, if we measure 
what they receive from us by what we enjoy and have received 
from them." 

King Philip's war was a war for immediate safety to secure 
protection from an enemy in our midst, who could hinder but not 
prevent the occupation of the land. More than three generations 
later much the same problem presented itself, and the question 
of expansion of empire formed an important factor. Canada was 
a foreign country, and French ambitions irritated the English 
provinces, having little other bond of union than this fear of a 
common enemy. The influence of the French over the Indians 
constituted as great a menace as the operations of the French 
themselves. It lay in their power to keep the northern frontiers 
in unrest, and to use their native allies in those methods of attack, 
so stealthy, so exasperating, so deadly. The barrier country was 
a land of bloody encounter, here an insult and there an outrage, 
requiring constant watch and a parade of armed men. Such 
tactics weary unproductively, and for more than half a century 
after the Narragansett campaign, the straggling settlers, push- 
ing their way into new territory, bore the brunt of the offending. 

But when France developed her ambitions, and showed her in- 
tentions of lining the Western limits of the English settlements 
with a cordon of French and Indian forts, to extend from the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, the situation 

22 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

changed. The expedition from Canada to the Ohio River and the 
construction of Fort Du Quesne, constituted a challenge directed 
not against the colonies, but against the mother country. Great 
Britain accepted the challenge, sent troops to America, and called 
upon the provinces for aid. Here were given the first lessons in 
real war to Washington, and at this time were implanted in New 
England the seeds of that ambition to possess Canada, that played 
so important, and yet so disastrous a part in the War of Inde- 
pendence. Massachusetts answered loyally to the call for troops, 
and once more sent out a force to secure its freedom from Indian 
incursions to the north, and to advance the interests of empire to 
the west. The soldiers were servants of the King, and the first 
call brought two thousand men to the standards — against the 150 
levied for the Narragansett fight. Numbers count but little, the 
spirit is the thing. The researches of our Mr. Frank Smith show 
that from the comparatively small community of Dover proper, 
four men went to King Philip's War, and eleven to the French 
and Indian War. 

War is war, and it is not well to dwell upon its harrowing fea- 
tures ; the purpose of the war forms its justification. When, in 
1754, delegates from some of the English colonies met at Albany 
to consider a plan of union, a greater step was taken in advance 
than the war, beginning in the following year, accomplished. 
Failure, as the conference confessedly was, it pointed out the 
direction in which political history must read. It was not so much 
the imperial ambitions of England the provincial troops advanced, 
as it was an as yet undefined, national ambition of their own. The 
war gave an occasion for more united action, and so proved a 
schooling in union for a common purpose. The military train- 
ing was of little importance when set against the training in 
statesmanship, which was to be developed by the acid and mis- 
directed legislation of Great Britain into a rebellion, and by the 
drastic experience of war into a revolution — the war of inde- 
pendence. Our forefathers would have seen in it the finger of 
God ; we feel this, though more cautious of claiming to be the 
favored people. To this great result the men at arms in these 
early wars, contributed their full share. Thus we, inheritors of 
their lands, mindful of their achievements, and living under a 
government of law and order, pay our tribute to those men of 
Indian service. 

The President : I notice in the audience the Commander of the 
Department of Massachusetts in the Grand Army of the Republic. 

22> 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

I know all present will want to hear from him. I have the 
pleasure of inviting Commander J. Willard Brown to address 
you. 

ADDRESS. Commander J. Willard Brown. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Why is it that on this 
peaceful day, forty-five years after the close of the war that saved 
the Nation, from shore to shore, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, 
our fair flag of freedom floats unfretted and unchallenged to 
the breeze? 

True, in this complex nationality of ours, other flags may 
claim the fancy of fond memory, — the Cross of St. George, with 
that of St. Andrew, the Union Jack, the tricolor of France, or the 
flag of German fatherland. Or even among nearer kith and kin 
there may be the reminiscent symbol of struggle, of success and 
defeat, that appeal to cherished memories or sectional pride, but 
more and more, except in some benighted corners of the Republic, 
it is becoming a fanciful dream, a vanishing reminiscence of 
what might have been, and not a flag to fight for or to fight 
under. 

Let us then all turn to our one banner. Old Glory, the Red, 
White, and Blue, — born in the midst of battle, borne through 
struggle and strife, in sunshine and shadow, often obscured by 
disaster and defeat, but ultimately crowned with glory and honor, 
the symbol of a new nation, the emblem of union, of constitutional 
law, and finally, thank God, of universal freedom. And so, let us 
hope that for all future time, more and more, it shall mean the 
largest possible exemplification of the Golden Rule. 

Again I ask, — Why is our flag floating over 3,000,000 square 
miles of territory and protecting more than 88,000,000 people? 
The answer, I believe, is found in the public schools that crown 
our hills and nestle in our valleys. Here the youth of the land 
were inspired by Otis and Henry and Adams and Sumner and 
Phillips. Here they were thrilled by that masterly reply of Web- 
ster to Haynes of South Carolina, closing with those stirring 
words : "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and in- 
separable !" 

In eloquent words His Excellency, the Governor, has spoken of 
the war that gave us political independence, that made us a nation. 
Brief but discriminating reference has been made to the second 
war with the mother country, the war that gave us commercial 
independence. 

Representing the Grand Army of the Republic, it is my privi- 

24 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

lege to speak for those, the living and the dead, who saved the 
nation from destruction, this fair land purchased with the blood 
of the fathers. This memorial shaft that we have just unveiled 
we "dedicate to the memory of those who in the navy guarded 
our inland seas and ocean coasts, and fell in defence of the flag. 
We dedicate it to the memory of those who in the army fought 
for our hillsides and valleys and plains, and fell in defence of the 
flag. We dedicate to the memory of those who on land and on 
sea fought for the Union, and fell in defence of the flag; who on 
land and on sea fought for the authority of the Constitution, and 
fell in defence, of the flag. 

What we do here, what we say here, will soon pass from the 
minds of men, or be covered with the dust of oblivion on the 
library shelf. But until this granite column shall crumble into 
dust it will speak of "the loyalty and the heroism of the Army 
and the Navy, and of that significant national authority of which 
the flag is the symbol to every true American heart." 

May it not speak to us and to those who shall follow us, of 
war merely — of struggle and conflict. May it speak to us of 
the results that came out of the conflict. May it ever take us 
back to that day at Appomattox when our great leader quietly 
and modestly said, — "Let us have peace." 

Let us all, not only those who saw the horrors of that hateful 
thing, War, but those as well who know nothing of its terrors, 
unite to work and pray for the oncoming of that time. 

When navies are forgotten 

And fleets are useless things, 
When the dove shall warm her bosom 

Beneath the eagle's wings, — 

When memory of battles 

At last is strange and old, 
When nations have one banner 

And creeds have found one fold, — 

When the Hand that sprinkles midnight 

With its powdered drift of suns 
Has hushed this tiny tumult 

Of sects and swords and guns, — 

Then Hate's last note of discord 

In all God's worlds shall cease, 
In the conquest that is service, 

In the victory that is peace! 

The President : These dedicatory exercises will close with the 

25 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

singing of America and the benediction by the Rev. William R. 
Lord. 

BENEDICTION. By Rev. William R. Lord. 

And now may the God who inspired these fathers and brothers, 
inspire us also, that with the same purpose, we may live and 
die ! Amen. 



26 



DEDICATION OF THE NEW GRAMMAR 
SCHOOLHOUSE. 

EXERCISES IN TOWN HALL. 

DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES. By Rev. William R. Lord. 

WISDOM. 

Wisdom is unto men a treasure that faileth not, 

And they that use it obtain friendship with God. 

For she is a breath of the power of God, 

And a clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty; 

Therefore can nothing defiled find entrance into her. 

An effulgence from everlasting light is she, 

And an unspotted mirror of the working of God, 

And an image of his goodness. 

And she, being one, hath power to do all things; 

And remaining in herself, reneweth all things. 

She is initiated into the knowledge of God, 

And she chooseth out for him his works. 

Fairer is she than the sun, 

And above all the constellations of the stars; 

Being compared with light, she is found to be before it; 

For to the light of day succeedeth night 

But against wisdom evil doth not prevail; 

But she reacheth from one end of the world to the other with full 

strength. 
And ordereth all things graciously. 

Wisdom is easily beheld of them that love her, 

And found of them that seek her, 

She forestalleth them that desire to know her, 

Making herself first known. 

He that riseth up early to seek her shall have no toil. 

For he shall find her sitting at his gates. 

She goeth about, herself seeking them that are worthy of her. 

And in their paths she appeareth unto them graciously, 

And in every purpose she meeteth them: 

And in all ages entering into holy souls, 

She maketh them friends of God and prophets. 

As the prayer which followed was entirely extemporaneous, a 
copy could not be procured for the proceedings of the dedicatory 
exercises. 

MUSIC. Stratford Street Male Quartet 

27 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME. Mr. Richard H. Bond. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : It becomes my pleasant duty to wel- 
come you here this evening to dedicate the Dover Grammar 
School.* 

You doubtless know that such an occasion means much of joy 
and satisfaction to all who have been closely identified with and 
interested in this new movement. Like many of the good things 
of life, there is pleasure in welcoming others into this season of 
rejoicing. We speak of it as a new movement, as indeed it is in 
relation to the school children of Dover. The days of the district 
school for this town, with its many disadvantages, as well as 
some advantages which may never be forgotten, are over. 

In dedicating this new building, there are being introduced into 
our educational life conditions which bring about equal advan- 
tages for all, — facilities and environments which we trust will 
induce to a better life physically, mentally, morally, and let us 
hope that in these days of privilege and opportunity the children 
may learn to recognize the hand of the Almighty in the many 
good things coming into their lives. 

It gives one pleasure to welcome you here, as it is seldom that 
our friends from other towns have reason to rejoice with us on 
such an occasion as this. It might be said to the representatives 
of the adjoining towns, we are indebted to you for having 
assisted us in the education of our children. In time this change 
in our affairs may deprive you of a little income in tuition fees. 
Yet we are confident that you appreciate our position and rejoice 
with us that we have now provided for our own. 

We would not forget in our welcome our former superinten- 
dents, who so faithfully served us and assisted us in raising our 
schools to a higher plane of efficiency. The chairman well re- 
members many a friendly talk with our past superintendents in 
which they individually recommended the changes which have 
now come to pass. 

To the parents and fellow town people I would say, the days 
of meditation, of toil and anxiety in regard to the school prob- 
lems, as they have confronted us, are over. It now remains for 
us to use and enjoy to the utmost that which we have. And may 
we so perform our part in life that the boys and girls in our midst 
today shall, in the days of their manhood and womanhood, have 

•At the annual March meeting in 1911 this school was named by 
the Town the Caryl School in memory of the Caryl family of whom the 
Rev. Benjamin Caryl was the first minister of the First Parish church, 
and his son. Dr. George Caryl was the only resident physician that 
Dover has ever had. 

28 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

occasion to look back with joyful and thankful hearts upon their 
schooldays and all that was done for them. 

The Chairman: The report of the Building Committee will 
now be made by a member of that committee, Mr. Walter P. 
Henderson. 

REPORT OF THE BUILDING COMMITTEE. 

Mr. Walter P. Henderson. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : Your committee begs 
to report that the work intrusted to it, of building and equipping 
a four-room schoolhouse, is practically completed. 

It may be interesting to review the various actions of the town 
in meeting assembled which led finally to the fulfillment of the 
plans of the School Committee, to build a school where the va- 
rious activities, which up to this time had been scattered in several 
small buildings, could be centralized. This new system, the 
School Committee believed, and was advised by experts whom 
they employed, would be much more economical and effective 
than the old one. 

The first favorable action of the town on the question was 
taken on June 24, 1909, when the following votes were passed: 
(1) "Voted that a four-room brick school building be erected on 
the Wilson lot, and equipped ready for use. That the sum of 
$25,000 be appropriated from the tax levy of 1908, and expended 
by a Building Committee. 

"That the Building Committee be instructed not to let contracts 
unless in its opinion the entire expenses, including building, 
water supply, sewerage system, architect's fees, complete equip- 
ment, and grading to the amount of $600 can be kept within the 
sum appropriated. That no contracts be let until the amount 
appropriated is in the treasury from the tax levy of 1908." 

(2) "That the Committee be authorized and empowered to 
build and equip the schoolhouse, to let contracts, to determine 
final plans and specifications, and to do all to make the building 
ready for use." 

The Building Committee held that under this vote they were 
not authorized to spend any money, as the amount appropriated 
was not then in the treasury from the tax levy of 1908. They 
did, however, take up the study of plans for the new building. 
The School Committee had employed Messrs. Cummings & How- 
ard to prepare tentative plans and estimates for the building, and 

29 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

with these for a basis, the Building Committee brought in to the 
next town meeting, at which the question was considered, an esti- 
mate of $26,000 as the probable cost of the new building and 
equipment. This meeting was held on March 7, 1910, and a vote 
similar to the one passed at the meeting of June 24, 1909, but 
increasing the appropriation to $26,000, was passed. The general 
contract was signed on April 8, 1910. The contract called for 
the delivery of the building to the town on September 1, 1910, 
but owing to many delays, some of which were unavoidable, the 
building was not occupied for school purposes until October 10. 
The committee regrets that its efforts to have the building fin- 
ished in contract time should not have been more successful, but 
they believe that they can say that the building is well and hon- 
estly built and is a credit and ornament to the town of Dover. 

It is probable that no machine was ever constructed that would 
work perfectly when new, and the same may be said of a build- 
ing. Mistakes will be made and misunderstandings will arise 
where so many are co-operating to produce a finished result, and 
the Committee begs the indulgence of the School Committee, the 
teachers and the children until the various working parts of the 
building are adjusted to each other and to the whole mechanism 
of the building. 

A financial statement is not included in this report, but will be 
made to the town officers when this report is formally submitted 
to them.* It may be said, however, that the total cost of the 
building will be very close to the amount appropriated. 

It gives me great pleasure, in behalf of the Building Commit- 
tee, to turn the keys of the new building over to the town. 

ACCEPTANCE OF KEYS. Mr. Richard H. Bond. 

As chairman of the School Committee it gives me great pleas- 
ure to accept these keys for reasons already given in the address 
of welcome. I assure you the School Committee will ever hold 
this building as a sacred trust, dedicated to the best interests of 
the children of the town. 

The Chairman : It gives me pleasure to introduce at this time 
one who needs no introduction to many of you ; one who has al- 
ways manifested a deep interest in our town, at one time super- 
intendent of schools, and at present our historian, Mr. Frank 
Smith of Dedham, who will give us an historical sketch of the 
schools of Dover. 

•The building cost ?25,957.75. 

30 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 
HISTORICAL ADDRESS. By Mr. Frank Smith. 

SOME PHASES OF THE MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL SYSTEM 
WHICH HAVE BEEN EMPHASIZED IN DOVER SCHOOLS. 

At this time, when you are in the midst of a period of transi- 
tion from old types of schools to newer types, it is well to con- 
sider that past history of yours which throws light on the school 
system of the Commonwealth. There certainly is no more ap- 
propriate place to consider several picturesque phases of our 
public schools than here. 

In the vote of the town of Dedham, passed May 11, 1726, ap- 
propriating five pounds for the support of a school, in what is 
now Dover, with Eleazer Ellis, Senior, and Nathaniel Chickering 
as a committee "to receive ye said money and take care that it 
be improve for said use," we have the genesis of the school dis- 
trict, and the "prudential school committee man," two institu- 
tions which prevailed in Massachusetts after the Revolution, but 
which I have nowhere else found so early established. 

In the colonial days Dedham chose her own schoolmaster, fixed 
his salary, named the studies to be pursued, and regulated the 
terms of admission. I want at this point to show the financial 
condition of the Colonists, that we may clearly understand the 
difficulties under which our fathers labored in the settlement of 
Dedham, whose history, previous to the incorporation of the Dis- 
trict of Dover, in 1784, is our own history. As Bryce has said: 
"Everything which has power to win obedience and the respect 
of men must have its root deep in the past." 

The founders of Dedham sprung from the well-to-do, self- 
supporting class of England, yet they had no wealth, consequently 
they brought but little money with them to their new settlement 
in the wilderness of America. In a short time they found them- 
selves, with the other colonists, completely drained of the little 
coin* which they had brought with them. Taxes had to be paid, 
and some articles of food and manufacture had to be bought, 
which completely drained their resources. This serious financial 

*The scarcity of specie is indicated by the fact that it was not 
until 1678, that a regular money rate for taxes was named in Massachu- 
setts, along with tlie usual corn rate. In 1685 the rule of remittance 
was two-thirds of the tax assessed when payment was made in money 
in Boston and other places in the vicinity. This Illustrates the finan- 
cial straits of the colonists. In 1720 the derangement of finance was 
such that it was found necessary to return to the old system, pre- 
viously referred to, of making farm produce legal tender. The General 
Court fixed the rate at which the treasury should receive w^heat, corn, 
cheese, butter, beef, hides, dried fish, and other commodities of the 
soi-t. Tlie interest on mortgages was made payable in country produce. 
Eleazer Ellis, who owned the place on Dedham Street, long known as 

31 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

condition drove the colonists to adopt various expedients. One of 
these was a system of country pay, the discharge of obligations, 
not in coin or paper, but in farm produce: corn, barley, cattle, 
poultry, in fact anything which had a market value. So we find 
the Dedham settlers paying their schoolmaster, Michael Metcalf, 
not in coin but in country pay, as the following record shows: 
The selectmen agreed (1658) with Mr. Metcalf to receive twenty 
pounds sterling, the one half in wheat, and the other half in corn, 
Indian or rye, at the end of each half year. Ten pounds, that is, 
five pounds in wheat, and five pounds in other corn, the wheat at 
the bakers' current prices in Dedham, and the other corn as it 
goes current from man to man." 

In the year 1700 there were twenty-eight children of the school 
age within the present limits of Dover. All the education which 
these children received was probably given them by their parents, 
or gained in attendance upon the school at Dedham Center, or 
possibly in a migratory school which once in a while held a ses- 
sion in the precinct. In 1725 the number of children had in- 
creased to about seventy — too many to be accommodated in a 
dwelling house, and therefore it is presumed that the first school- 
house (which was owned by proprietors) was built about this 
time and previous to getting the appropriation of five pounds for 
a school in 1726. From this time on, the westerly part of Ded- 
ham, now Dover, probably had a school of her own. 

School districts were first established by a statute of the Com- 
monwealth in 1789, which not only provided for holding district 
meetings and the election of a Prudential Committee, whose duty 
it was to hire the teacher and have charge of the school property, 
but to determine and define the bounds as well. Previous to the 
enactment of this law, it was the practice of towns to make a 
contract directly with the teacher in town meeting. It will be 
seen, then, that more than sixty years before the enactment of 

the Caryl Parsonage, took some stock in 1740 in a manufacturing com- 
pany, and in so doing placed a mortgage of seventy-five pounds on 
his farm, agreeing to pay five In the hundredth of the principal, and 
3 per cent. Interest in manufactory bills, or in merchantable hemp, flax, 
cordage, bar iron, cast iron, linen, copper, tanned leather, flaxseed, 
bees-wax, bayberry wax, sail cloth, canvas, nails, tallow, lumber, 
shingles, staves, hoops, white pine boards, white oak boards, ship tim- 
ber, barreled beef, barreled pork, oil, whalebone, cord wood and of 
the manufactures or produce of the Province at such prices as the 
directors shall judge they pass for In lawful money at six shlllinga 
and eight pence per ounce, with one per cent, advance thereon. This 
but illustrates how little coin the colonists had. 

The publication of the conditions of this mortgage was urged 
by the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale with whom the speaker visited 
the old parsonage in 1904. 



32 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

this law, Dover had both of these institutions, namely, the district 
school and the prudential committee man. 

Although the amount of money to be raised for school purposes 
was still determined by the town, and assessed with other taxes, 
yet there was no responsibility to the town for its expenditures 
after its distribution had been made to the district. The appro- 
priation was made at the annual town meeting in March, and 
was later divided in accordance with the number of school chil- 
dren in each district, the enumeration being made by the 
assessors. 

In the year 1800 districts were authorized to raise money to 
erect schoolhouses and keep them in repair. Previous to this 
time there was no statute in Massachusetts which permitted 
schoolhouses to be built at public expense, the theory of govern- 
ment being then as now, that all power which the town possesses 
is derived from the Commonwealth. So we find that the first 
school here was kept in a building on Haven Street,* which was 
voluntarily built by residents of the precinct. The first parish 
schoolhouse** was erected in 1763, after permission to build had 
been gained from the General Court, by a committee consisting of 
Daniel Chickering, Asa Mason, and Jonathan Whiting, Jr. In 
this schoolhouse the town provided a school until its separation 
from Dedham in 1784. A district meeting was held in each 
schoolhouse in the spring, and the prudential committee man 
chosen at that time had charge of the school property during the 
year. He also hired the teacher and named the wages to be paid. 

School lands were sometimes laid out for the support of 
schools. Soon after the incorporation of the town of Needham, 
Timothy Dwight gave the new town forty acres of land in what 
is now Dover for the benefit of a school. While the income from 
this land was never large and furnished but scant aid in the sup- 
port of a school, yet it was retained by the town of Needham for 
nearly two centuries, and was sold only a few years since. 

As the prudential committee man received no pay for his serv- 
ices, there was little rivalry for the position. The office usually 
went in rotation to the men of the district who were willing to 
serve. A new resident, if he had shown ability enough in the 
management of his own affairs to look after the repairs of the 
building, was frequently elected to the office. The prudential 
committee man sometimes used his office to put a son, a daugh- 

•The site of the first schoolhouse has been marked by a boulder, 
set up by the Dover Historical Society. 

**The site of this schoolhouse was on the present grounds of the 
First Parish, west of the easterly driveway. 

33 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

ter, or friend into the school as a teacher. As the appointee often 
had small qualifications for the position, the practice was an in- 
jury to the school and to the cause of common school education. 
The patrons of the school had then, as now, decided notions about 
the school and how it should be run, and the prudential committee 
man had constantly to stand a fire of criticism which was any- 
thing but gentle. 

There was no systematic discipline in these early schools ; "the 
training of the human plant had not been thought of," but later 
there were some excellent teachers who knew what true education 
is. Then, as now, the teacher made the school, and those who 
brought the requisite scholarship and the right spirit to the work, 
often led their pupils to take up studies which laid the foundation 
for a broad education. In the Library of Harvard College there 
is a letter from Jesse Chickering, contributed to the history of the 
class of 1818, in which he states that in 1812-13 he pursued his 
classical studies during the winter months in the district school 
in Dover, which shows what the teachers of that time were doing 
for their pupils.* The old methods have passed away and new 
ones have taken their place, yet the district school was a power 
for good in the community, and often furnished a rare discipline 
to the pupil, giving him good preparation for the active duties of 
life, nor were the graduates of these schools altogether ignorant 
of the higher things, which are necessary to right living and the 
fullest enjoyment of life. 

The bright pupils in these district schools knew what they 
needed to know, and were taught where to find it. After they 
had found it they knew what to do with it, which is the best edu- 
cation and the best training which anyone can receive. 

A woman** of excellent scholarship, born in Dover in 1842, 
and who attended the East School, recently wrote me that at 
eight years she commenced the study of Latin in that school, and 
a year later took French. She says : I was given a short lesson and 
required to know everything possible about it. No careless work 
was received. The foundations of arithmetic were laid with a 
drill every day in Colburn's Mental Arithmetic, and so thorough 
was the work that I never studied arithmetic after I was eleven 
years old, and I had then worked through Greenleaf's Higher 

♦Martin Cheney, a prominent minister of New England, an aboli- 
tionist, an eloquent advocate of temperance, peace and equal rights, 
received all his schooling, w^hlch commenced In 1797, In the Dover Dis- 
trict School. A biographical sketch of Mr. Cheney in manuscript is 
found in the Dover Public Library. 
**Mrs. Lucy M. Townsend. 

34 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Arithmetic, the last half three times, and the first half five times. 
The woman* who taught this school, a native of Dover, went di- 
rectly from here to Gannett's popular school in Boston, and was 
later the proprietor for many years of a very successful and fash- 
ionable private school in Boston. 

The Revolution, from Washington down, was carried on by 
soldiers who had attended only country schools. Throughout the 
Commonwealth the district school was supplemented by the 
efforts of the learned men, the town ministers, who not only di- 
rected the schools, but also took pupils into their homes to be 
educated. This work was carried on by the town ministers, the 
Rev. Benjamin Caryl, and the Rev. Dr. Ralph Sanger, both of 
whom fitted young men for college. Dr. Sanger, often with 
more children in the schools than at present, and with an appro- 
priation which never exceeded $600** a year, maintained, for 
forty-seven years, schools which were worthy competitors with 
your organized schools of today. t A woman, t writing of her 
mother, born in Dover in 1810, and educated in her schools, says: 
"She attended the district school, for the most part under male 
instructors, some of whom were men of marked character. Her 
taste for reading, and her intelligent interest in the world's 
progress, she owed to 'Master' Whitney, and to the hours in 
which she read aloud to her father. To the last years of her life 
she regularly perused the daily and weekly newspapers, not only 
the local and news columns, but the leading articles and editorial 

♦Miss Irene F. Sanger. 

**Dover appropriated this year (1910) $10,350 for the maintenance 
of schools with an enrollment of 126 pupils. 

fin making this statement T feel that I know something of the 
school system of this town. I went to the West school as a boy, which 
had been attended by my father and grandfather before me. I taught 
every school in town but one, the North School. I was a member of 
the school committee and superintendent of schools for ten years and 
during my term of service the plans of the Sanger Schoolhouse were 
procured, adopted by the town, and an appropriation made for the 
erection of the building. This was the first step in the permanent im- 
provement of your schools and logically finds a culmination in the 
school building which is dedicated tonight. On February 6, 1888, the 
School Committee organized the Dover High School, which we main- 
tained unimpaired, although the continuation of the school was several 
times opposed in town meeting. During my administration the schools 
were put on a modern course of study with written tests and the best 
approved text books. Before the establishment of a town library, 
school libraries were organized in every schoolhouse in town. Draw- 
ing and singing were introduced into the schools with special instruc- 
tors. The first steps toward consolidation were taken by closing both 
the East and North Schools. Later these schools were re-opened by 
vote of the town, but the feasibility of consolidation, with the erection 
of a suitable building, was demonstrated. The length of the school 
year was extended to thirty-eight weeks, and the tenure of office for 
teachers put in force. 

t Miss Alice J. Jones in Dover Folk Lore. 

35 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

notes, prices current, and especially the records of the legislature 
and the 'doings' of Congress, and was familiar with the Presi- 
dent's policy. She had her opinion of public men and measures 
and her reason for that opinion." This statement exactly applies 
to my own mother and to scores of women of this town whom I 
have known. 

One of the early teachers in Dover was the Rev. William 
Symmes, D.D., who left his position here to become a tutor at Har- 
vard. Thaddeus Allen, A.M., who kept a private school for many 
years on Chauncey Street, Boston, and Dr. Jonas Underwood, 
widely known as a physician, taught here nearly a century ago, as 
did the Hon. George P. Sanger, who was for many years United 
States District Attorney, and his brother, S. Greenleaf Sanger, 
who has devoted his life to classical instruction, and was for many 
years an instructor in a preparatory school in Chicago. Dana P. 
Colburn, the eminent mathematician and principal of the Rhode 
Island Normal School, also taught here. Prof. Arthur L. Perry 
of Williams College, the eminent writer on economic questions, 
was an applicant for a school in Dover, but failed of an appoint- 
ment. Just across the line in Dedham was the Burgess School, 
which some pupils from Strawberry Hill, especially members of 
the Wilson family, attended. From this district school many 
young men entered college without other preparation. This work 
was accomplished through the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Burgess, 
who was allowed to select the teachers who taught the school. 
Ephraim Wilson, for many years the town surveyor, was taught 
surveying in this school by a teacher who knew enough to send 
him out into the fields with men actually engaged in civil engi- 
neering, in order to gain a practical knowledge of this branch of 
mathematics.* The wages paid to teachers were very low, espe- 
cially to women. Sally Fiske, an aged spinster, whom I recall 
very vividly, taught the West School for seventy-five cents a 
week and her board. 

It would be interesting to trace the introduction of text-books 
and the development of courses of study. The Dedham schools 
at first admitted only male children and servants, and instruction 
was confined to reading and writing English. The school age of 
all children was from four to fourteen years. In 1667 the school- 
master was required to teach English, writing, grammar, and 
arithmetic. When in the evolution of our schools, girls were first 
admitted, no one can tell. Women did not teach here until long 
after they had been in service in other places. The first woman 

*See appendix for a list of those who went out of town to school. 

36 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

teacher employed in Dedham was Miss Mary Green, who taught 
the Springfield Parish School in 1757. Miss Mehitable Ellis has 
the distinction of being the first woman to teach a winter school 
in the town of Dedham, having taught the Parish School here in 
1760-1. When we recall the prominent place which woman occu- 
pies in the educational system of today, we see that this school 
has a proud distinction, and is an object of much historical inter- 
est which we do well to note. The training of girls in household 
duties was considered of much greater importance than book- 
learning. A century ago a girl was taught to read, to write, to 
understand the rudiments of arithmetic, — in short, she was to be 
a housekeeper, to know how to cook, to wash, — to lead what was 
called a domestic life. Girls were taught to sew in school, and as 
illustrating this accomplishment, at about the age of twelve 
years, each girl was required to work "a sampler," which con- 
tained the alphabet, a selected verse or passage of Scripture, the 
name and date, with some crude representation of a bird or beast 
or flower. One is before me which was worked in the Sanger 
School by Miss Lucy Allen in 1818. Today all is changed, and 
women, even in the country, lead a freer, larger, out-of-door 
physical life. 

The character of the district schools was illustrated by a letter 
written in 1843 by Benjamin B. Fuller* of Dover, who taught 
several schools in adjoining towns. He said, "I had fifty- five 
pupils; all studied arithmetic, forming five classes. These 
classes, with a half-hour devoted to writing by forty pupils, filled 
the three morning hours. In the afternoon session all read in 
four classes, and all were taught spelling in three classes. In 
English Grammar there were also three classes, and two in 
geography." He was also required to teach United States His- 
tory, Natural Philosophy and Geometry. 

Soon after its incorporation, the District of Dover proceeded 
to organize new school districts in the east and west parts of the 
town. Each district built and kept in repair its own schoolhouse, 
and when districts were abolished, in 1869, the town purchased 
the school property. Under this old school system each district 
formed a little community by itself, and most of the social life 
was within its narrow limits ; little visiting was done even by boys 
and girls outside of its established boundaries. 

The question of where the little schoolhouse should stand was 
often a perplexing one, especially if there chanced to be no lot 
of worthless land near the geographical center of the district. 

•Slafter's Schools and Teachers of Dedham. 

37 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

The schoolhouses in the center of this town, six in number, have 
had as many locations as a wandering Jew. Most of the early 
schoolhouses were built near the road and occupied but little 
ground, often being placed on the fence line on the side or rear, I 
once saw a schoolhouse which was located in a corner of a burying- 
ground. The school grounds had few, if any, trees to protect 
the pupils from the summer's heat or the winter's cold. In the 
early schoolhouses, the windows were shadeless ; no curtains tem- 
pered the glare of the summer sun. 

How our ideas of education have changed! Today the most 
beautiful sites are selected for schoolhouses, and the grounds are 
often adorned with drives, paths and promenades, together with 
the planting of a great variety of trees, shrubs and vines. The 
school garden is now an important adjunct and illustrates the 
change which our civilization has wrought in methods of school 
instruction. Your ample school grounds should be utilized in 
the establishment of a school garden with all of its possibilities 
in training and development, rather than turned over to a mere 
playground, when you have all that is needed in this direction 
just across the street on the land added to the town common a 
few years since. 

The schoolhouse was always small, and just as many children 
as possible were crowded within its narrow walls. This was the 
day of large families, when children were numerous. I find 
in the family of Ebenezer Newell, Jr., who lived on the Eben 
Higgins farm, thirteen children ; while James Cheney, who owned 
the Coughlan place, had twelve children. Joshua Ellis, who lived 
on the Captain Wotton farm, had twelve children, while his 
nearest neighbor, Nathaniel Chickering, and his brother, Joseph 
Chickering, both of whom lived on the Chickering homestead on 
Haven Street, had respectively thirteen and fourteen children 
each. Jonathan Whiting, who lived at the foot of Meeting House 
Hill, had eleven children. Any one who will collect the genea- 
logical facts of a family for two hundred years, and arrange them 
in their line of descent will see what ex-President Roosevelt 
means by "race suicide." The first settlers started in with a 
dozen or more children, to be followed in an ever descending 
scale until the average in many families today does not rise above 
one child, and many families are childless. 

The schoolhouse was roughly built, but was shingled or clap- 
boarded. After the Revolution schoolhouses were often painted 
red ; many will recall "the little red schoolhouse" in the east dis- 
trict, which was used as a dwelling house for many years, after 
it had been given up for school purposes, and was destroyed by 

38 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

fire only a few years since. The schoolrooms were plastered, but 
had no ornamentation, even blackboards were not introduced be- 
fore 1830. I shall never forget how fine I thought the old West 
schoolhouse looked, after some of the neighbors got together and 
papered its walls. The schoolhouses were dimly lighted by small 
windows and small panes of glass. The glass was often broken 
by the older boys, and in cold weather when the school was in 
session the missing pane was usually supplied with a shawl, or 
the hat of the boy who had broken it. 

The West schoolhouse, which I first attended, had but one en- 
trance, the outside door opening directly into the "entry" as it 
was called. The space was largely taken up by the woodshed, 
nevertheless the boys were expected to hang their hats, and coats 
if they had any, in the entry, but most of these articles found a 
place on the floor, owing to the limited space and the small num- 
ber of nails which had been provided as hooks. As the boys 
went out there was a great scramble in assorting this collection of 
hats and coats, with many scraps and much ill feeling. Most of 
the pupils brought their dinner, and their dinner pails in summer 
were arranged around the walls of the entry, or under the recita- 
tion seat; in winter, to prevent freezing, the dinner pails were 
placed around the fireplace, and later under the wood stove. At 
this time there was not a rubber shoe in America, and in wet 
weather many of the boys had wet feet most of the time. After 
rubbers came into use. Dr. Sanger used to make his school visits 
in them, which he never removed from his shoes. He often re- 
marked that "a good way to mend an old pair of boots was to 
buy a new pair of rubbers." 

The water pail was placed at the schoolroom door, where the 
children could help themselves as they passed in or out. All 
drank from one tin dipper, a most unhygienic practice. Boys 
often drank inordinately, to show their capacity and make the 
others laugh. In summer time the water was passed to the pupils 
by a younger scholar, who was glad of an opportunity of breaking 
the monotony of his school life. No provision was made for 
water on the school grounds, and for more than a century and a 
half the neighbors, or some nearby spring, furnished all the 
water used for school purposes in the centre of the town. 

The fireplace was large and occupied no small part of the front 
of the building. Here the teacher's desk was placed. No de- 
scription exists of the first parish schoolhouse. I suppose, how- 
ever, it was a typical schoolhouse of the period. If so, along the 
walls on three sides was a sloping shelf accompanied by long 
benches. The older pupils sat on these backless benches facing 

39 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

the walls. When they studied or worked on their slates, or wrote 
in their exercise books, they placed them on the shelf, which was 
about three feet above the floor. A line of lower benches for the 
younger pupils was in front of those occupied by the older ones. 

In the middle of the room was an open space where the children 
recited. They were drawn up along a line or crack in the floor, 
which they were expected faithfully to "toe." The backless 
benches were often far too high for the little pupils who occupied 
them, leaving their feet dangling in mid air. And so we cannot 
help thinking of "the poor little tired backs with nothing to lean 
against, the poor little bare feet that could never reach the floor, 
the poor little droop-headed figures so sleepy in the long summer 
days, and so afraid to fall asleep." 

The school session was from nine o'clock in the morning until 
noon, and from one o'clock in the afternoon until four, with an 
intermission during each school session, called a "recess." The 
boys and girls had their recess separately, each lasting ten min- 
utes. The boys had their recess first. When the time arrived the 
teacher would say, "Boys may go out." Later the recesses were 
united in one of fifteen minutes. On Saturday there was a half- 
holiday, the school being in session five and a half days in the 
week. "Manners" were required of each pupil on leaving the 
room. The courtesy was given to the teacher, if he were looking, 
otherwise to the door or benches. The school exercises began 
with reading from the New Testament by the "first class," fol- 
lowed by the repeating of the Lord's Prayer. Then, with the 
making of quill pens, came the exercise in writing, the thawing of 
the ink in winter, and the watering of it in summer, with the set- 
ting of copies at the top of each page for the pupil. Copy-books 
were made of foolscap paper, carefully sewed into book-form 
and ruled by hand. All writing was done with pen and ink. 
Lead pencils were first offered for sale in Boston about 1740; it 
was yet many years before they found a place in the schoolroom. 

After the writing exercise the older pupils took up their work 
in arithmetic, which was often taught without a text-book, a 
"sum book" in manuscript being used by the teacher. The solu- 
tions of problems were carefully copied into manuscript books 
which were models of penmanship and neatness, some fine sam- 
ples of which are still found in town. Singing was introduced 
into some schools, but there was no attempt to teach the reading 
of music. It was simply taken up as a pleasant exercise, and 
songs were sung at the opening or close of school. Slates were 
not in general use before the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
When first introduced they were of a superior quality. The slate 

40 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

used by my uncle, Joseph Allen Smith, who first attended the 
West School in 1818, came down to my father, who used it 
throughout his boyhood days. It then went to my uncle's daugh- 
ter, who used it through her school days, and on her marriage 
took it with her to Middlesex County. 

The younger pupils were called out to read from their primers 
while the older pupils were preparing their lessons. The exer- 
cises of the morning closed with a general "spell," the teacher 
pronouncing the words from the spelling book, which were 
spelled in a loud voice by the pupils in turn, each one dividing 
the word into syllables. The exercises of the afternoon were 
varied from those of the morning by the addition of "Accidence" 
and Geography, after its introduction about 1820. The first 
geography used in this country was made by Jedediah Morse, 
and was published in 1784. It was called "Geography Made 
Easy," and by 1820 had run through many editions. The roll- 
call was made at the opening of the school, both morning and 
afternoon, when those in attendance answered "present." 

There was no money with which to pay for janitor's services 
and so the big boys took turns in opening and heating the room, 
while the older girls swept the schoolroom. At night the boy 
whose turn it was to care for the fire the next day raked up the 
fire and carefully covered the coals. If the fire went out the boy 
had to go to the nearest neighbor to get a brand, which he carried 
in a crotched stick. The larger girls alternated in sweeping and 
dusting the room during the noon hour (a task most difficult to 
perform when the weather was stormy and the children were 
confined in the room). Nathaniel Fiske, born in 1803, who lived 
near the West schoolhouse on Farm Street, kindled the morning 
fires for many years, to the great comfort of the patrons of the 
school, never looking for compensation or thinking he had done 
aught but the natural thing. 

The fireplace was large and deep, and consumed large quanti- 
ties of wood, which was burned green and worked up by the 
older boys. In zero weather the children stood round crying 
with the cold while the boys tried to coax the fire to burn. Dur- 
ing the morning the room often got so warm as to be almost un- 
bearable to the pupils near the fire, while the children were still 
shivering at the back of the room. 

The fact that the wood was worked up by the boys was no 
drawback in their education. The weakness of too many coun- 
try schools of today is found in the fact that the children in many 
homes have absolutely nothing to do ; like city children they go 
through school without ever doing a day's work at home. 

41 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Seventy-five years ago the greater part of a boy's education was 
received in the fields with his father ; the three or four months' 
schooHng was but an incident in his life. While the father held 
the plow the boy drove the oxen ; while he cultivated the corn 
the boy rode the horse; while he loaded the hay the 
boy raked after the cart ; while he dug the potatoes the boy 
picked them up ; while he topped the corn the boy carried out the 
bundle of stalks. With his father he planted the corn and the 
beans and the vegetable garden, — all of which furnished, during 
the season, an abundance of manual labor, — manual training, al- 
though it was never called by that name. In the morning the 
boy drove the cows to pasture, and at night cut the kindling 
wood. As Charles Warner said : '*No boy has ever amounted to 
much who has not had a liberal education in chores." As a 
recent writer has said, "In doing all these things the boy got not 
only physical but excellent moral development." There are few 
of the virtues in which he was not given training. Habits of in- 
dustry, fidelity to duty, thoroughness in work, obedience to order, 
and many others were acquired by daily practice, and this is 
really the only way that habit can be acquired. 

Let me say to those parents who are fearful of consequences 
in the education of their children, in making a residence in the 
country, that Simon Greenleaf Sanger, who attended the district 
school here in his youth, graduated in 1848 at the head of his 
class at Harvard. Miss Mabel Colcord, who graduated with spe- 
cial honors at Radclifife, attended the West School in her youth, 
while Miss Martha A. Everett (Mrs. Charles A. St. John), at- 
tended the same school, and won the $200 entrance examination 
prize on entering Smith College. George F. Parmenter, Ph. D., 
who attended the West School, is now professor of Chemistry at 
Colby. Charles H. Higgins, B. S. D. V. S., F. R. M. S., who 
went directly from the Sanger School to college, is now Patholo- 
gist in the Department of Agriculture, Dominion of Canada, 
and has the honor of being a member of the Royal Microscopic 
Society of London. Theodore F. Jones, Ph. D., who was an 
instructor in Harvard at 22 years of age, and now instructor in 
European History at the University of New York, attended the 
Sanger School as a boy. Miss Parthena Jones, who attended the 
North School a half century ago, taught school successfully at 
fourteen years of age in Westwood, and was for many years a 
successful teacher in the High School at Newport, R. I. With 
brains and a favorable environment, your children may begin 
their education in the country school without loss to themselves. 

Previous to the Revolution nearly all the text-books used in 

42 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

American schools were made in England, but when our fathers 
went to war they would not import any more school books. For 
a time the pupils used the books that older children had used, 
then came a period of oral teaching, and in the course of time 
American text-books. The arithmetics used by our fathers and 
mothers were very poor, the problems were intolerable. They 
abounded in lotteries, and no other commodity was in such uni- 
versal use as intoxicating liquor. Every child had to learn the 
tables of beer and wine measures. The geographies abounded in 
such illustrations as the following: "the selling of female slaves," 
"a bull fight," "a. wolf killing an antelope," "the horrors of an 
earthquake," "a widow prepared to be burned on the funeral pile 
of her late husband," "a human being prepared for sacrifice in 
connection with a religious service, with a pile of the skulls of 
previous victims in sight." 

While books were used as long as they would hold together, 
in some respects it was better than the present custom, where 
everything is furnished free to the pupil, and as a consequence 
many homes are almost bookless today. Of course there was 
no uniformity in text-books in the olden time and few pupils 
were equally advanced in their studies, so the school resolved 
itself into as many classes as there were older pupils. The win- 
ter term of school commenced invariably the Monday after 
Thanksgiving, and continued twelve weeks. The summer term 
began at first in July and later in May, and continued three 
months. The winter school was sometimes extended in the 
spring by private contributions, and took in at such times the 
children of other districts who desired to attend. The teacher 
boarded round in the homes of his pupils, spending in each house 
a length of time proportionate to the number of school children 
in the family. On the afternoon before the close of each school 
term the older boys and girls, under the direction of the teacher, 
cleaned the schoolroom, and put it in order for the public exami- 
nation which was to take place the next day. The floors and 
windows were washed, the seats scrubbed, which often made 
more prominent the deep-cut initials. The walls were festooned 
with green boughs and running vines. 

Those who do not know the traditions of the fathers often 
turn from their customs, and institutions that have been main- 
tained for generations are lightly dropped. Such was the public 
school examination which grew out of the needs of the public 
schools. At the end of each term public examinations were held 
either in the forenoon or afternoon, as the case might be, which 
were largely attended by the parents and friends of the school. 

43 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

The children were on their best behavior and were examined by 
the school committee in the studies pursued. Dialogues, decla- 
mations, compositions and songs were given in addition. Brief 
addresses were made by the school committee and others, who 
offered words of encouragement to teacher and pupil. Much 
good feeling was created as residents of the whole district met 
in their educational sanctuary to shake hands with one another 
and note the progress of the school. Once, when in his manhood 
years Theodore Parker was deeply moved by a generous tribute 
he had received, he wrote that only once before had he been 
equally gratified by appreciative words. That was when, at an 
examination of the district school, one of the general committee 
of the town asked Mr. Parker, "Who is that fine boy that spoke 
up so smart?" His father said, "Oh, that is one of my boys, the 
youngest" ; and, when his father reported at home the question 
and the answer, the boy's heart glowed with a deep joy, not for 
the praise of the words, but for the satisfaction it gave to his 
father. The "parents' day" will never make good this ancient 
custom, which originated in the needs of the district school. 

The lesson of obedience was early impressed on the pupil, and 
if the teacher was good at figures, and could write well enough 
to set a respectable copy, mend the pens, and read without stum- 
bling over the long words, and had vigor enough to enforce his 
authority he was too often an acceptable teacher. Muscular 
strength had often to come between teacher and pupil. It was 
no uncommon thing for ipupils to put the master out of the 
school. Horace Mann in one of his early reports to the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts, speaks of three hundred schools 
which were broken up during the year by insubordination on the 
part of pupils. The extracts given by George K. Clarke* from 
manuscript** copies of Needham School Reports, from 1841 to 
1859, are of interest as showing the condition of public schools 
at that time /and the trend of educational affairs. No such in- 
subordination as is sometimes spoken of in these early reports 
could exist in any public school today, and it is no longer possible 
for pupils to break the school up, as of old. 

Strictness in a teacher was regarded as a virtue. The means 
employed to enforce discipline were primitive ; the ruler or a 
good limber sapling about five feet long, were usually employed. 

*Dedham Historical Register. Vol. XII. 
•♦Manuscript School Reports of Dover — 1839 to 1858 Inclusive — are 
in the State Library in Boston. In 1839 there were 137 children of the 
school ase in Dover and with an appropriation of $400, the pupils were 
Instructed in all the common school branches, and In addition there 
were classes In philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, rhetoric, and Watts 
on the Mind. 

44 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Even the oldest pupils, both boys and girls, were punished alike. 
Occasionally a teacher was found who did not use the rod at all 
but resorted to moral suasion ; such teachers, however, were re- 
markably rare. The attendance upon the district school was very 
irregular as the children had work to do at home, and often had 
to wait for books and to have shoes and other articles of clothing 
made before they could go to school. Tardiness was considered 
a disgrace, and many pupils attended school for years without 
ever being tardy. 

The precautions now taken in our public schools against conta- 
gious diseases mark the progress that has been made in this 
direction. Within the memory of the speaker no precautions 
were taken to prevent the spread of scarlet fever or diphtheria 
in schools or families. Public funerals were held and children 
from afflicted families were allowed to attend school as usual the 
day after the funeral of one who had died from either scarlet 
fever, diphtheria, measles, and other contagious diseases. There 
was little or no fumigation ; vinegar sprinkled around or burnt 
in the rooms was the only disinfectant used in those early homes. 
Going back still farther, we find epidemics of influenza, malig- 
nant sore throat, dysentery and typhus fever. Many were af- 
flicted with these diseases, and deaths often occurred without a 
thought that they were contagious and demanded separation or 
isolation of the patient from the other members of the family. 
In cases of measles there was often little or no isolation of the 
patient. 

Later in the development of your schools a school committee 
was chosen, as required by law, which usually consisted of three 
persons who had the general oversight of educational affairs. 
The clergyman of the town, previous to the Rev. Dr. Sanger's 
removal, and for some years subsequent, was the chairman of 
the committee. In his first manuscript report Dr. Sanger pays a 
fine tribute to the Common Schools : "Your Committee considers 
our Common Schools as one of the precious institutions which 
have come down to us from our fathers, and which deserve our 
most cordial attachment and support." While under the care of 
the clergy, the visiting of the schools was done by one person, 
who had the opportunity of comparing one school with another, 
and the work of a year with that of previous years. This ar- 
rangement was an improvement over the system existing in 
many towns where the schools were divided for visiting among 
the members of the committee, who were quite likely to change 
from time to time. Under this system the town schools lacked 

45 



DEDICATORY EXERQSES 

uniformity, as the committee man was unable to compare one 
school with another. 

The visiting on the part of the school committee always in- 
cluded an inspection of the register, the copy books, the hearing 
of recitations, and the asking of a few questions of the pupils. 
There was a talk with the teacher about school affairs during the 
recess, and a few remarks (and a prayer — if the committee man 
was a clergyman) at the close of the school. The chairman* of 
the school committee examined the candidates for teachers' posi- 
tions, but did not have their selection, as this duty belonged to 
the prudential committee man. A prominent educator, one who 
looks upon the old district school with the eye of affection, says : 
"With all the new improvements and privileges, none of us can 
forget the sturdiness and shiftiness developed in the old district 
school, nor cease to be grateful for what of good the system 
had." What was the strength of the old district school ? Let the 
late Prof. William James of Harvard answer: "The older peda- 
gogic method of learning things by rote and reciting them 
parrot-like in the schoolroom rested on the truth that a thing 
merely read or heard, and never verbally reproduced, contracts 
the weakest possible adhesion in the mind. Verbal recitation 
or reproduction, is thus a highly important kind of reaction be- 
havior ; and the extreme value of verbal recitation as an element 
of complete training may nowadays be too much forgotten." 

With the decline of the district school and the disappearance of 
"the little red schoolhouse," we may note the changes which have 
come to the whole fabric of New England life. The steady ten- 
dency of the age is toward centralization. One by one the busi- 
ness enterprises of this town, the rolling mills, the nail factory, 
the paper mills, the shoe factories, the brush factory have disap- 
peared. Nearly all of the individual enterprises of our fathers 
have gone because business has been merged into larger institu- 
tions until there is no place for the small concern today. We 
live in the age of steam power and electricity ; before this age 
every little stream in town was utilized in carrying on the enter- 
prises enumerated above. Some day the large streams will 
again be used in generating electricity for power and lighting 
purposes and then all this waste of water will forever cease. 

History repeats itself. With the exception of the high school, 
the school system of Dover stands today exactly where it stood 
when the first school was opened in this town in 1726. All the 
children were then educated in one building. What is some- 

*In his last school report, made In 1858. Dr. Sanger refers to the 
fact, that he has seen two generations, and In some Instances three 
generations of children pass through the schools under his supervision. 

46 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

times called " a new American institution" — the substitution of 
the consolidated school for the old time one-room-country-school 
has been going on for the past quarter of a century. In this 
way the children of a town mingle, compete, strive, make friend- 
ships, and learn how to work together, overcoming the class dis- 
tinction which unconsciously existed in the district school. The 
first attempt to consolidate schools in Dover was made in 1887, 
when the East School was for a time closed and the pupils trans- 
ferred to the Sanger School. The advantages of consolidated 
schools was set forth in the annual school report for 1888 and in 
several subsequent reports, and the subject was thoroughly de- 
bated in town meetings. 

The first real improvement, and in a way, the first consolidation 
of schools, took place in the organization, on February 6, 1888, 
of a High School, to which all the pupils of the town of the re- 
quired attainments were admitted — a school which has ever 
since been continued and lately greatly strengthened. 

So the neighborhood schoolhouse, which was once the very 
fabric of New England existence, is going. Within its walls 
the farmers often met to listen to lectures on temperance, health, 
the tariff, with a singing school in the winter months. Here was 
formed the country lyceum, and journals still in existence show 
how often the lyceum held meetings here, where great questions 
of politics were discussed by the Natick cobbler — Vice-President 
Wilson, — Dr. Noyes of Needham, and many others in the vicin- 
ity. Here the anti-slavery leaders held forth and in the little 
schoolhouse laid the foundation of the agitation which resulted 
in the freedom of the slaves. In the country school district most 
of the great men, whose voices later swayed the nation, were 
reared. These changes are inevitable, but we cannot view them 
without a feeling akin to regret. Oh, what tender memories 
cluster about these silent walls ! 

When the rising generation in Dover heard the story of our 
country from the lips of those who had received it from the old 
soldiers who had taken part in the last French and Indian War 
and in the Revolution, they were taught to love the Republic 
with an undying love, as attested by the large number of gradu- 
ates of the district school who were volunteer soldiers in all the 
later wars. We have put the flag above the schoolhouse ; now 
let us put the love of country, the love of the home, the love of 
the church, and the love of the school into the hearts of the chil- 
dren. 

Of course you have discovered that it was the home life and 
not the school, that it was the teacher and not the organization 

47 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

which made the worth of these early schools. May the school 
again become the adjunct of the home. "We must not forget," 
says a prominent educator, "that the home is the essential insti- 
tution of mankind, and not the school. It is only through the 
intelligent co-operation of the home and school, and through the 
jo:nt effort of each to implant right ideals of life and conduct 
that we can compensate for the old-fashioned training which the 
boy received in the fields and gardens near to Nature's heart." 

The Chairman : As many of you know, our town is in a union 
with the towns of Wayland and Sudbury in the employment of a 
superintendent of schools. This union has enjoyed the services 
of some of the best men to be found ; unfortunately for us, but 
to the advantage of others, this union has unconsciously per- 
formed a peculiar function, viz, that of selecting the best to be 
found and introducing them to the stronger towns and districts 
in Eastern Massachusetts. It has been very convenient for those 
high in authority to say, "Go over to the Wayland, Sudbury, 
Dover District. They have just the man you want." The loss of 
these good friends of ours has been gain to others, one of whom 
needs no introduction to the boys and girls of Dover, Mr. S. C. 
Hutchinson, superintendent of schools of Andover, who will now 
address you. 

ADDRESS. Mr. S. C. Hutchinson. 

Mr. Chairman : I wish to make a few remarks in a somewhat 
personal way. I have very pleasant recollections of the days I 
spent in Dover, working in the interests of the schools. My 
knowledge of the educational conditions in the town, coupled 
with the fact that I can now speak freely as a visitor, makes me 
feel that it is eminently fitting for me to offer especial congratu- 
lations on this delightful occason. 

And, first, I wish to congratulate the members of the School 
Committee upon their persistent endeavor and the successful out- 
come of their efforts in the realization of this elegant building. 
I wish, also, to bear testimony to their efficiency and untiring 
energy in behalf of the schools. I know whereof I speak. I 
congratulate the members of the Building Committee upon the 
very evident manner in which they have discharged their duty, 
and I congratulate the town upon the possession of an adequate 
and modern school plant. And now I congratulate the citizens 
and the boys and girls, Dover's finest, for nowhere do I find finer 
boys and girls than are produced in Dover, upon the educational 

48 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

opportunities offered by this building and its equipment. I re- 
joice at the complete centralization of your schools. I am glad 
that you have established a complete high school course. All this 
means much to the welfare and prosperity of the community. 

And now I foresee in Dover a model school, — a typical, model 
school for a suburban community. You have a model building. 
You may have a model equipment, model courses, model teachers, 
in brief, a school system for other towns to imitate. You may be 
pioneers in a modern, progressive, and practical education. 

All this is possible, and more, and you have my best wishes 
for the realization of all that you anticipate. 

The Chairman : On the road leading to Natick, beyond the 
home of Mr. George C. Chickering, there lived many years ago 
a man who took a deep interest in this town. A man highly re- 
spected, a man whom the citizens were pleased to honor, and did 
honor by naming the street on which he lived for him. Also the 
young people of the Evangelical Congregational Church took the 
occasion to honor him by naming their Christian Endeavor 
Society, The Haven Society of Christian Endeavor. 

For some unknown reason this family moved to what was at 
that time "The West," or New York State. However, it is pleas- 
ant to relate that a descendant has returned to our neighboring 
town of Needham. He also is interested in our town and is ex- 
tremely interested in young people. It gives me pleasure to in- 
troduce to you Professor George B. Haven of the Institute of 
Technology, who will now address you. 

ADDRESS." Professor George B. Haven. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends of the Town of Dover: It is a 
great pleasure to stand before you this evening and congratulate 
you upon the completion of the handsome school building which 
stands across the way. 

We have been listening with eager interest to your historian 
of the evening, in regard to the old days of the district school, 
and I am sure our hearts have beaten a little bit quicker as we 
have recalled the happy days spent amid those surroundings. It 
is a truth that the strength of the old district school lay in the 
personality of the teacher, and many a schoolmaster and school- 
ma'am of the old New England type has left an indelible stamp 
upon the character and lives of the scholars. The old district 
school was a "district university," for it often took the place of 
the primary school, preparatory school and college course to 

49 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

those who came within its doors, and it indeed was no mean 
agency for the spreading of knowledge. 

But we must not forget, in the glow of enthusiasm over the 
old district school, that it had many and grievous failings; that 
great amounts of time were spent in going to and from a remote 
school and often the inclemency of the weather made it impossi- 
ble for children to attend school through long periods. You have 
seen fit to provide for this need in a very fitting way by the hand- 
some and commodious building just finished in your town. 

The childhood years of life are all-important years. During 
that period the character is shaped and fashioned fof all time. 
The child grows mentally and physically by leaps and bounds, 
and we certainly cannot pay too much attention to those impor- 
tant years. It is, therefore, well for a community to have good 
primary schools, where the natural trend of the child's mind may 
be carefully observed and where it may be allowed to develop in 
a natural fashion. We have come to the conclusion in these days 
that a child is made for a definite purpose in life, and the com- 
plete fulfillment of that purpose is the highest education which 
can be oflfered the child. Therefore the possibility of observing 
and developing the natural growth of a child intellectually is all- 
important to his after-success in whatever path he may choose to 
walk. Children are made for certain paths of life, and cannot 
be forced successfully into callings which are against their na- 
tures. Honorable Woodrow Wilson, the ex-president of Prince- 
ton University was once importuned by an anxious mother to 
know if he could make a lawyer of her boy. After exhausting 
all the means at his command in assuring the mother that they 
would do their best, he said, "In short, madam, we guarantee to 
give satisfaction — if not, we will return the boy." The mother 
then began to grasp the idea that lawyers become good lawyers 
because they cannot help it, and that to make a lawyer does not 
rest with human education. "Returned boys" or "misfit boys" 
are not pleasant experiences in parental training and are liable 
to lead to life-long mistakes. Therefore the more care parents 
can exercise in selecting the right education for their children 
the more successful will be the outcome. 

We recognize, more than did our fathers, the fact that every 
honest calling of life is honorable, and to recognize and train a 
child to his peculiar bent gives him the best possible education. 
We therefore have in these times vocational schools of every 
kind, schools of commerce, art, science, and manual training. 
These are simply signs of the care which we are seeking to show 

50 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

in developing the young according to the purpose for which they 
were created. 

Let me offer the sincerest congratulations to you once more, 
friends of Dover, upon the completion of this excellent school- 
house, which will long stand as an unfailing monument to your 
care and forethought in training to the very best ends those en- 
trusted to you. 

The Chairman : In our search for one to address you this 
evening, we were directed, and properly, too, to the State Board. 
We were informed of "just the man," one who has come into 
our 'midst from a distant field. It now gives me pleasure to 
introduce to you C. A. Prosser, Esq., Deputy Commissioner of 
Education. 

ADDRESS. C. A. Prosser, Esq. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I congratulate you upon the fine 
building which you have erected for the better training of the 
boys and girls of Dover. It is doubtful where there is to be 
found in New England a school building better equipped for its 
purposes than the one which we have assembled to dedicate this 
evening. The ample basement which has been provided, with its 
high walls and concrete floors, will afford excellent facilities for 
the introduction of manual training activities in wood and iron 
for the boys, and in the household arts for the girls. If what I 
may be able to say here tonight shall contribute in any way to a 
movement that will bring about the introduction of practical 
activities for boys and girls in the upper grades of the elementary 
school in the town of Dover, I shall feel that my effort has not 
been in vain.* 

In the last analysis the problem of securing competent teachers 
for the schools is an economic one. Wherever low wages prevail 
in the teaching profession, if profession it may be called under 
such conditions, capable men and women in whom the teaching 
instinct is strong, equipped with the preparation, the personality 
and the sympathetic social viewpoint, so necessary to effective 
service in a free public school system today, will be shunted from 
the schools into less attractive but more remunerative employ- 
ment, leaving the children who ought to have the best service, to 
the tender mercies of the incompetent and the indifferent. 

Moral education of the future recognizing that children are 
concrete and motor minded, will not be content to merely impose 
from without moral precepts. It will seek to devise a body of 

♦This is but an abstract of Mr. Prosser's address. 

51 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

concrete experiences or projects for home and schoolroom and 
playground which will bring the child into contact with the simple 
pract cal applications of moral truth in order that he may test 
and approve and adopt and apply it as a working force in his life. 

There is even more need today than formerly for concrete as 
set over against abstract teaching in the schools. In the simpler 
conditions of farm and village life that obtained a quarter of a 
century ago boys and girls were brought into intimate motor con- 
tact with many life experiences of which the town and city child 
knows nothing. These experiences gave such children an apper- 
ceptive basis for the work of the schoolroom, for which thus far 
we have not been able to supply an effective substitute. Hence, 
the demand today for the introduction of some of the practical 
activities of life in simple form into the elementary schools. 

Among the activities found available for this purpose are weav- 
ing, knitting, sewing, cooking, simple accounting, woodworking 
and metal working. Such activities, if taught aright, will give 
much of the life experience through which the pupil of more 
primitive days brought to his studies a background of concrete 
knowledge that aided measurably in the mastery of rules and 
principles and theories. 

A narrow course of study offering only academic instruction 
along time-honored lines affords but little aid in the solution of 
this problem, particularly in the case of the boy or the girl who 
has not been very successful with the things of the book. In the 
simpler life of fifty years ago, children were tested by their active 
contact with a simple, but diversified, life experience. The farmer 
and the artisan in his home shop came to know the interests and 
the aptitudes of his offspring. Practical activities in the schools 
will afford to a large extent, at least, the same opportunity to the 
school authorities. 

Manual activities in the lower grades will serve as a basis of 
right teaching; in the upper grades they will serve the additional 
aim of vocational direction. In the upper grades of the elemen- 
tary schools, beginning with the seventh grade, the children 
might well take certain studies together, differentiating so far as 
facilities will permit in others. 

BENEDICTION. Rev. Albert H. Plumb. 

The Lord bless and keep thee; 

The Lord make his face to shine upon thee 

And be gracious unto thee; 

The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee 

And give thee peace. Amen. 

52 



UNVEILING OF HEADSTONES ERECTED 
TO THE MEMORY OF REVOLUTION- 
ARY SOLDIERS 

' EXERCISES IN THE CEMETERY. 

The President of the Dover Historical Society, Mr. Frank 
Smith : We are assembled to unveil these headstones which 
have been erected to the memory of Revolutionary soldiers who 
rest in this enclosure, but whose graves are unlocated and un- 
marked. These headstones were furnished by the Quartermaster 
General of the United States Army and are inscribed with the 
service of each soldier. The list is as follows: Sergeant Jere- 
miah Bacon, Josiah Bacon, Jr., Sergeant John Chickering, Cor- 
poral Luke Dean, John Draper, Josiah Draper, Thomas Draper, 
Ezra Gay, Sergeant John Mason, Nathan Metcalf, Abijah Rich- 
ards, Ebenezer Richards, and Samuel Wilson. 

Having failed to find any one who is descended from these 
soldiers, I have asked a little girl who is, nevertheless, related to 
three of them, to unveil these headstones. She has the peculiar 
honor of being descended from nine of the founders or early 
members of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company; one 
ancestor fought in the Pequot War, seventeen took part in King 
Philip's War, four fought in the French and Indian Wars, and 
twenty-one took part in the Revolution, two of whom fought at 
the Battle of Bunker Hill. I present Miss Sarah Smith, who will 
now unveil these headstones. 

EXERCISES IN THE TOWN HALL. 

The President : An invocation will be offered by the Rev. 
William R. Lord, minister of the First Parish, of which all the 
Revolutionary soldiers whom we honor today were members. 

INVOCATION. By Rev, William R, Lord. 

O God, Father of the races, tribes and nations. Thou in whose 
light our common humanity has been, through the ages, strug- 
gling up and on, we thank Thee, at this time, for all those who 

53 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

by any service, have helped us into the fruition of their hopes, and 
so much of the realization of their purposes ! For those who 
lived that those who came after them might be free ! For those 
who, in living for us, gave their lives, the seal of their sacrifice, 
we thank Thee! 

To them we rear these tokens of our gratitude, and for their 
sakes, as well as for the sake of those who come after us, we 
would not withhold the gift of our lives, in every form of serv- 
ice, whether of time, of wealth, or of life-blood. 

So may we be worthy of those whom we remember today, and 
of ourselves as Thy sons and daughters. Amen. 

The President : The Dover Historical Society, incorporated in 
1900, and located in this little town, is proud of her building — 
the Sawin Memorial, — proud of the nucleus already gathered 
of a valuable historical library and an interesting historical col- 
lection, which illustrates the past life of this people ; but most of 
all she is proud of her membership, which is large enough to 
accomplish almost anything along the line of local historical 
work. We trust the accomplishments of the past are but the be- 
ginning of a large work in the future. 

Some time ago it was thought fitting to have a lot set apart in 
Highland Cemetery on which to erect headstones to the memory 
of Revolutionary soldiers buried in the cemetery, but whose 
graves are unmarked. We are assembled this afternoon to dedi- 
cate these headstones. 

We have with us a distinguished gentleman, whom we would 
not greet alone as a former Governor of our beloved Common- 
wealth, or as an able statesman, or scholar, or as Presi- 
dent Taft's appointee as Ambassador to Russia, but rather on 
this occasion, as a soldier, one who enlisted as a private in the 
Spanish American War, was given a commission and served 
with distinction on the stafif of General Fitzhugh Lee, and was 
the first man after his general, to enter Havana. I think he has 
come to us the more willingly because his paternal ancestor for 
generations belonged to what is now Norwood, which with 
Dover, was a parish in Dedham. I have the honor of introduc- 
ing the Hon. Curtis Guild. 

ADDRESS.* Hon. Curtis Guild. 

Mr. Chairman, and may I say, by heredity at least, my f ellow- 

*Gov. Guild gave an eloquent address of which this Is but a brief 
report. 

54 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

townsmen, for the family of which I am a representative in this 
generation, originally settled in the ancient town of Dedham. 
They were John and Samuel Guild, brothers, wanderers from 
Scotland and, as far as we are able to ascertain, the first Scot- 
tish settlers in New England. They and their descendants shared 
in the trials and sufferings and sacrifices which we have com- 
memorated today in this ancient burying ground, and while, as 
our presiding officer so fittingly noted, most of those whose graves 
we decorated today served in Captain Battelle's Company, you will 
pardon me for reminding you that some of them also served in 
the Company of Captain Joseph Guild, and some in the company 
of Captain Aaron Guild. 

The great movement in civilization today, to which we all lend 
the most hearty accord, and which is to lift us, I believe, higher 
than any other one movement of the present century, is the 
crusade for universal peace, for peace between the nations, for 
"The parliament of man and the federation of the world." Yet 
we are assembled today to honor the memory of soldiers, for 
sometimes it is true that war is necessary that there may be an 
enduring peace. 

Such was the case in the Revolutionary War. Such is the kind 
of war justified forever in the motto of the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts. Too few of our citizens appreciate what that 
motto really means. Fanatics in the cause of peace are accus- 
tomed to condemn it and to accuse the people of Massachusetts 
of maintaining on their flag and on their state seal, a bloodthirsty 
invitation to war. 

The general desire for peace has in a way diverted attention 
from the real service the soldier does his country, and we are 
constantly brought back to the old stanza, Thackeray, I believe, 
originated in one of his typical poems : 

"When battle dawns and war is nigh, 
God and the soldier is the cry. 
When peace has come and wrong is righted, 
God is the God, the soldier slighted." 

The graves of those men who stood up in battle that this United 
States might exist, have been forgotten and the location lost. 
Now, three generations afterwards, grateful posterity comes to 
the old burying ground, that it may not be forever said that those 
to whom we owe the very existence of our country should longer 
be forgotten. If "greater love hath no man than this, that he lay 
down his life for his friend," surely greater patriotism hath no 
man than this, that he lay down his life for his country. That 

55 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

risk, whether the supreme sacrifice demanded it or not, that risk 
at least is taken by every man who signs an enhstment roll and 
goes forth to face death in battle for the country that he loves. 

We are so accustomed to the privileges and delights of the 
United States that we do not half appreciate the tremendous im- 
portance of the Revolutionary War in the history of the world. 
We do not half appreciate what America means to other nations. 

Today I had a conference of an hour and a half with a com- 
mittee of foreign-born, naturalized citizens from another country, 
and one man turned to me and said : "You native-born Americans 
do not half appreciate your own country. It takes a naturalized 
citizen to be almost fanatically an American. I came to this 
country almost a starving boy. I am now a director in savings 
banks, and the head of a great manufacturing industry. I am a 
member of the Senate of a sovereign state ; I am a Lieutenant- 
Colonel in one of the militia regiments of my state, and I shall 
probably be its commanding officer within a year. In the country 
where I was born I should still be either a peddler with a pack on 
my back, or a peasant tilling the fields. None of the possessions 
which it has been possible for me to obtain simply by my own 
hands and my own head could ever have been reached by me in 
the country where I was born. I love my native village, and I 
love the relatives that still are there. You are an American 
because you had to be; I am an American because I never lived 
in any other country in the world." 

That a foreign-born citizen could say this is due to the fact 
that these men lived and died and gave their services, as we all 
know, in that Revolutionary War, which took from beginning to 
end so many of the ancestors of those who still live in this dear 
old Commonwealth. One way of appreciating what a tremen- 
dous diflference that made in the world is the study of the history 
of the flags of the world. We don't quite appreciate that Bunker 
Hill, — the little battle of Bunker Hill, with only a few people 
engaged on each side, not even a modern brigade on each side, — 
that the little battle of Bunker Hill, which settled that there was 
to be a Revolutionary War, was one of the decisive battles in 
history. 

Our flag, with two exceptions, is the oldest flag in the world. 
That may seem strange to you, but it is literally true. We are 
only a century and a quarter years old, a very young nation, and 
yet of all the flags that float above the different nations, the Stars 
and Stripes has floated unchanged for the longest time, with two 
exceptions. The Revolutionary War changed not only our his- 

56 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

tory ; it changed all history. Its example influenced the career of 
every other nation in the world, and with the change of political 
conditions in other nations, came a change of the flags. The 
movement for greater freedom in the United States was fol- 
lowed by a movement for greater freedom in Europe, and with 
the accomplishment of greater freedom in Europe came a change 
in the flags in Europe. 

The great part which Massachusetts played in the Revolution 
it is not perhaps proper for us to enlarge upon in every place and 
in every Commonwealth, but at least here on our own hearth- 
stone, within the borders of the ancient Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, the original Pine Tree State, from which the 
other states have copied their insignia, one of the only four Com- 
monwealths in the entire union, with Virginia, Pennsylvania and 
Kentuck)^ it surely cannot be inappropriate very briefly to state 
to you the part which these men helped play in Massachusetts' 
contributions to the Revolutionary War. Of those who served 
at one time or another in the Continental Army in the defence 
of the American cause, there were all together only 231.000. 
Today that would be regarded as not a very large army for one 
nation, and yet that includes every single person, even to the 
smallest drummer boy or to the minute men and the militia. 
That was all in all those years of storm and stress, — 231,000 men. 
There were thirteen Colonies to contribute to those 231,000 men, 
and out of that number, 68,000 men came from the single Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts. 

The extent of our service in Massachusetts is not to be meas- 
ured merely by such battles as took place within the limits of our 
state, yet here, within the limits of our state, at Lexington and 
Concord, Massachusetts was first. She has been first in every war 
this country has ever waged for law, for order, and for the main- 
tenance of human liberty. She was conspicuously not the first in 
the one war which this country did wage for acquisition of terri- 
tory — the Mexican War. She lagged in that one war, and that 
was the only one in which she was behind the other states of the 
American Union. 

The Battle of Bunker Hill, as I have already stated, is one, 
measured by results, which we may call justly one of the crucial 
battles of the world's history, for it determined the future, not 
merely of the United States, but the future of other nations. 

The Spanish-American War, comparatively unimportant meas- 
ured by loss of life, — one of the shortest wars ever waged in the 
world, — is yet, measured by results, one of the most important 

57 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

wars in history. You will remember in the Spanish War, at the 
beginning we were an isolated nation, with very little interna- 
tional diplomacy, and at the end of that war we were not merely 
the United States of America, but we had learned to stand to- 
gether, North and South, and had become the United States of 
America. The Stars and Stripes had flown East and West, until 
now we, for the first time, can say with the same boast as the sons 
of England, that today there is not a single second of the twenty- 
four hours when, somewhere in the world, the sun is not shining 
on the Stars and Stripes. 

I have spoken of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Let me take it as 
a type of political or patriotic action, as the Battle of Bunker Hill 
was a crisis in the world's history because it showed that Amer- 
ica, at a tremendous disadvantage, would fight for a great cause 
against the most skilled and experienced troops in all the world. 
Yet that battle was an American defeat. It need not have been a 
defeat ; it might have been the most overwhelming victory, and 
the Revolutionary War, instead of having been protracted for 
years and years, might have been made a matter of months, if all 
Americans had acted as the brave 1500 acted who bore the brunt 
of that fight. One thousand men crossed that narrow isthmus 
and toiled all night at fortifications, without food, without any 
extra supply of powder, without even a cup of cold water, to 
sustain them during the broiling heat of that terrible June day 
before the battle that has resounded through the world, with no 
help whatever but two or three hundred New Hampshire men 
who rushed across the neck to help them, and yet within three 
miles, under arms and sword, there lay at Cambridge an army 
three times the size of the British soldiers, who were cooped up 
there in Boston, and no reinforcements were sent, while their 
fellow citizens died upon that bloody hilltop in the common 
cause ; and as all the accounts invariably say, from the hilltops, 
from the housetops, from the trees in the vicinity, thousands of 
citizens witnessed the contest inactive, and watched their brothers 
die. 

But, whether celebrating the achievements of the sons of Mas- 
sachusetts in the Revolution or in the early Indian Wars or in 
the War of 1812, and those which have come later, this town, 
this little Massachusetts town, this town typical of New England 
ideals and enterprising New England patriotism, has furnished 
a worthy part in all the struggles. In proportion to its size, it 
has done a worthy part. It is useless for us to join in commemo- 
ration, if the study of the records of those things which are past 

58 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

lend us no inspiration whatever for the doing of the things that 
are to come. We are not called upon to face scalping knives 
today, nor the bayonets of enemies in war, — pray God we may 
never become involved in any war with any other nation, — but we 
are called upon in a battle, in a zvar, where no sub- 
stitute can be furnished; where we ourselves must work 
and furnish a little of our brains, a little of our leisure, a 
little of our money, a little of our time, to see to it that not 
merely in war, but in peace, the United States is still the leader 
among the nations, for the betterment of mankind, for the recog- 
nition of the fatherhood of God and of the brotherhood of man, 
and may it be written of the soldier's peace, as it is written of 
the soldier's war, and might be written of these dead men who 
sleep on that May hillside across the old country road there, as 
Emerson wrote it of the man who died at the head of his negro 
troops on the turret of Fort Wagner : 

"Stainless soldier on the walls, — 
Knowing this, — and knows no more, — 
Whoever fights, whoever falls, 
Justice conquers evermore, 
Justice after as before, — 
And he who battles on her side, 
God, though he were ten times slain, 
Crowns him victor glorified. 
Victor over death and pain. 

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust. 
So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, 

'Thou must,' 
The youth replies, *I can.' " 

The President : An original hymn contributed for the occasion 
by Mr. Burges Johnson of New York will be sung by a class of 
school children. This beautiful hymn I hope will find a place in 
every hymn book in town to be used on occasions. It may be 
called the Dover Hymn. 

ORIGINAL HYMN. By Burges Johnson. 

OUR HERITAGE. 

As Israelites of old 
Repulsed the foes of Edom, 
And by God's grace were bold 
To keep His gift of freedom; 
So from each vale and hill 

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DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Where now in peace we dwell 
Our fathers did His will, 
And bravely fought and fell. 

O God, who in that day 
Our sires to war incited. 
Grant us the power we pray, 
To keep the watch-fires lighted. 
May we by faith withstand 
Thy foes from age to age. 
And guard beneath Thy hand 
Our priceless heritage. 

BENEDICTION. By Rev. Albert H. Plumb. 

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee ; the Lord make His face 
shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up His 
countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen. 



60 



UNVEILING OF BRONZE TABLET. 



The exercises of dedication of the bronze tablet erected 

TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

THE INDIANS AND THEIR 

"peculiar HUNTING PLAqE"" « 

AS THE ADJOINING REGION* 

WAS CALLED BY 

THE APOSTLE ELIOT 

were held in the Town Hall on Saturday afternoon, January 13, 
1912, Mr. Aug^stin H. Parker, Vice-President of the Dover 
Historical Society presiding. 

OPENING REMARKS. By Mr. Augustin H. Parker. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : This meeting has been called for the 
purpose of dedicating a tablet to the memory of the Indians who 
once lived and hunted in this vicinity. We really ought to have 
as our Chairman the President of the Dover Historical Society, 
Mr. Frank Smith, but as he is to be one of the speakers, he has 
asked me to preside. Mr. Smith has been to great pains to per- 
fect the details of this meeting, and our hearty thanks are due 
him for the work he has done, and for his careful attention to 
what I may call the historical setting of the meeting. For in- 
stance, I will call your attention to the fact that the ushers on this 
occasion, Messrs. Charles Thompson and Eliot Higgins, are re- 
lated by ties of blood to the Apostle Eliot. Mr. Smith has col- 
lected all the obtainable facts relating to Dover as the hunting 
place of the Indians, and I know we shall listen to the address 
which he will give later on with the greatest interest. 

The Chairman : I will ask the Rev. William R. Lord to deliver 
the Invocation, 

INVOCATION. By Rev. William R. Lord. 

O Thou who hast made all the races and the nations of one 
blood to dwell upon the face of the earth, we meet today in the 

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DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

memory of a departed people! We meet in possession of their 
land, but with regret and remorse for the wrongs and injustices 
inflicted upon them by our fathers. Remembering these sins of 
our forbears, we would it were possible, before Thee, to atone 
for them ! We would we might claim before Thee such purity of 
purpose, and such sentiments of pity that we could not ourselves 
have been sharers in the cruel transgressions and grievous op- 
pressions of former times. Today, as sign of our regret and re- 
pentance for all these wrongs, we set here, before Thee and our- 
selves, this token of the presence of this departed people upon 
these hills and in these valleys. 

May we, who cannot do more, enter into the inheritance of this 
fair territory, with worthy purpose, striving before Thee, with 
consecrated industry, to make it abundantly productive of health 
of body and nobility of soul, 

O Thou, who dost bless us in every worthy purpose, and every 
noble deed, we thank Thee for the assurance of Thy presence at 
this hour, and that now and evermore we are with Thee, the God 
of every people, who have lived, or will ever live, upon this 
earth ! Amen. 

The Chairman: The bronze tablet will be unveiled by one 
who is descended in the ninth generation from Nathaniel Chick- 
ering, the first settler in the centre of this town. Her ancestors 
have been residents of th's place for nearly 225 years, and have 
been prominently identified with all her institutions and every- 
thing connected with the upbuilding of Dover. The tablet is the 
gift of Mr. Richard W. Hale, and the boulder on which it is to 
be placed is the gift of Mr. Michael W. Comiskey. I have great 
pleasure in introducing Miss Antoinette Chickering. 

The Chairman: I will now call on Mr. Frank Smith, President 
of the Dover Historical Society, who I believe knows as much 
about the history of Dover and vicinity as any man in this 
country. 

HISTORICAL ADDRESS. By Mr. Frank Smith. 

DOVER AS A HUNTING-PLACE OF THE INDIAN. 

Three hundred years ago, the territory on which we live was 
occupied by a race of people so numerous that from the summit 
of hills not far distant a half dozen or more Indian villages could 
be counted. As these villages often contained three or four acres, 

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DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

on which the wigwams were crowded closely together there must 
have been a goodly population of Indians in this vicinity. In rec- 
ognition of the fact that the Indian was the first settler, he is 
given a prominent place in the official seal of Dover. 

As a race they were living here and conveying land by deed to 
ancestors of present Dover families as late as 1763, a space of 
time, which measured from the present is less than that covered 
by the lives of two generations of many men and women born on 
Dover soil, and yet every trace of these original people has dis- 
appeared from the land which they once occupied. 

"Alas for them! Their day is o'er; 
Their fires are out from hill and shore. 
No more for them the wild deer bounds, 
The plow is on their hunting ground. 
The pale man's sail skims o'er their flood; 
Their pleasant springs are dry." 

While on these streets are seen, every day, not only descendants 
of the English settlers, but those of the Celtic race, the Italian, 
the Pole, the Swede, and other nationalities, yet not a native 
Indian has walked these streets for many years. I was told last 
summer at the Indian settlement at Mashpee that there is not 
one pure-blood left in that old Indian plantation, and the last 
census shows that there are only 688 Indians in Massachusetts. 

It is in memory of this race, whom we recognize as the first 
settlers on this soil, that we are assembled to mark with an appro- 
priate tablet one of their favorite hunting grounds, that by so 
doing we may help to keep alive the important facts of our early 
history. 

Fortunately we know more about the Indian today than ever 
before. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, who has had a rare opportunity 
to study the history, traditions, customs, habits and mode of life 
of these native Americans, says: Whence they came and when 
we know not, but if we were to judge from their stature, features, 
color, language, art, music, and many of their characteristics we 
would be convinced that their ancestors were of Asiatic origin. 
But whatever their history, their blood and experience produced a 
superior race. All the early explorers and historians speak of 
them as a strong, intelligent, honest and peaceful people. They 
were poets and artists by nature and their sense of humor was 
more developed than that of their Puritan neighbors. Proud, 
dignified and courteous, they were grateful for favors, nor was 
kindness ever forgotten. Hospitable to friends and strangers, 
they were generous to the improvident. They were repaid for 

63 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

their kindness by being kidnapped and transported to foreign 
countries. They were sold into slavery by the colonies of Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island. In Connecticut, they were hunted 
with hounds kept at the public expense and shipped to France to 
serve in the galleys. 

The Indians who roamed these fields three hundred years ago 
had no regular business other than hunting, fishing, and prepar- 
ing for the chase. They had no knowledge of the division of 
time as it exists today ; there was no marking off of time, save 
by the sun and the shadows cast by it. The sun, the moon and the 
stars helped to give them the idea of the difference between day 
and night, but they knew of no division of time into months and 
years. 

The way an Indian told the time was by holding up his hands 
from the line of the horizon to the sun. Three hands between the 
sky line and the sun was the same as three hours, four hands was 
four hours, etc. In the afternoon two hands held up between the 
sun meant such and such a time before sunset. They did not 
know the hours of the day, the days of the month or the seasons. 

The Indian was a close observer of the weather. A dry moon 
was one on which he could hang his powder horn, and a wet 
moon the reverse. This distinction, between a wet and a dry 
moon, is still made by Dover farmers. 

Now that this powerful race which once had its trail across this 
territory, fished in its streams and hunted in its woods, has been 
wiped out in oblivion by the conquering civilization of the white 
man, we ought to perpetuate as far as possible the picturesque 
life of the red man. When this town was named it would have 
been better to have called it Powisset or Noanet, because these 
beautiful names have individual character, rather than to have 
borrowed the name of Dover from an English town which has 
no special significance. It would have been a pleasure to register 
one's name from Noanet or Powisset, Massachusetts. 

While this race could neither read nor write or cast accounts 
yet they were intellectually developed through the use of the 
hand, the eye, the ear, and in social contact, but being governed 
by their emotions they were as changeful in purpose as children. 

In the settlement of the Indian village at South Natick, Gov- 
ernor Endicott tells us that, with the assistance of an English car- 
penter for two days, they were able of themselves to build frame 
houses after the English plan, and even erected a bridge across 
Charles River. The existence of a brain no less than a 
muscle shows that it has been developed through use, yet scien- 

64 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

tists tell us that the skull of the civilized man is not much larger 
than the skull of the savage. 

Think of the great Indian chiefs who were in many respects a 
match for the white man in the early settlement of this country. 
Take Pumham, for instance, who was killed in the woods be- 
tween Dedham and Medfield — perhaps on Dover soil. Next to 
King Philip, he was the most dreaded of Indian chiefs — a white 
man standing today for the same thing and fighting for the same 
cause — his country and his people — would be a great patriot, one 
to be held in everlasting remembrance, while this poor Indian is 
looked upon as a murderous savage. Let us never forget that 
the Indian's greatness and power came through the development 
of his God-given faculties. I like in imagination to think of the 
Indians who roamed these fields as representing the power, the 
cunning, the eloquence of this native people. 

Within the limits of this peculiar hunting ground may have been 
held, in the years long passed, many councils of war, and here 
may have been exhibited all the eloquence as they gathered around 
their council fires, for which they were celebrated. Drake says : 
Most Indians were natural orators, and the language they some- 
times employed to express their thoughts was very striking and 
appropriate. I like to imagine Noanet as the old chief in the fol- 
lowing account of the ceremony of burying the hatchet, as given 
by Drake. On this occasion one of the chiefs arose and proposed 
that a large oak which grew nearby should be torn up by the roots 
in order that the hatchet might be buried underneath it, where it 
might remain forever. After he had sat down, another who was 
greatly revered, rose to speak in his turn. Said he: "Trees may 
be overturned by storm and in course of time will certainly decay. 
Therefore, that the hatchet may forever be at rest I advise that it 
be buried under the high mountain which rears its proud head 
behind yonder forest." This proposal greatly pleased the whole 
assembly till an aged chief, distinguished for his wisdom, arose 
and gave his opinion in the following remarkable words : "Look 
upon me; I am but a feeble old man and have not the insistent 
power of the Great Spirit to tear up trees by the roots and over- 
throw mountains. But if you would forever hide the hatchet 
from our sight let it be cast into the Great Lake, where no man 
can find it or bring it forth to raise enmity between us and our 
white brother." The Indians were men of peace. Before the 
residence of Stephen Badger, the last minister of the Indian 
Church at South Natick, can still be seen two elm trees which 
were presented to him as a peace offering by the Indians, signi- 

65 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

fying that there was to be peace between Mr. Badger and the 
Indians as long as these trees continued to put forth the green 
leaf and their branches waved in the summer breeze. 

In the great controversy between the Apostle Eliot and the 
town of Dedham, over the granting in 1650 of land on Charles 
River for an Indian plantation at South Natick, Mr. Eliot states 
that the land on the south side of Charles River, now comprising 
the town of Dover and a part of Natick, was "a peculiar hunting 
place," and belonged to the great sachem, Wampituk, whose 
daughter Chickatabut married, and that the territory descended 
to their son, Josias who, Mr. Eliot declares, solemnly in God's 
presence did give up his right in this land unto God, to make a 
town, gather a church and live in civil order. 

Evidence of Indian occupancy of this territory is still found in 
Indian names. Quinnebequin is said to be the Indian name of 
Charles River, while that little stream, which has its northerly 
source in Dover, the Neponset River, still bears an Indian name. 
Pegan Hill, Noanet Brook, Dingle Hole and Powisset Plain are 
still current and I hope always will be, in memory of the Indians 
for whom they were named. These names give us of the present 
generation, some slight sound of the Indian tongue. 

From the number, situation and height of Dover hills, one can 
readily see that this was a favored spot. A half dozen hilltops 
command a sufficient view to enable the Indians to see the ap- 
proach of hostile tribes, the fear of which was ever present with 
them. Has it ever occurred to you, that from the summit of Pine 
Hill, in the southeast part of Dover, one may still see the sur- 
rounding country practically as the Indian saw it, with its rare 
conjunctions of hill, rock and plain, river and brook, as it came 
from the hand of the Creator? 

In the Quinnebequin, Noanet set his weirs and in the spring 
caught shad, salmon and alewives as they went up the river to 
spawn and in the smaller streams he set his eel pots. On the 
plain of Powisset the Indian planted maize, beans, melons, pump- 
kins and tobacco. I have conversed with those who could remem- 
ber the Indian cornfields with the hills discernible in rows on this 
plain. There was a pretty marriage custom practiced by some 
tribes where the man gave the woman a deer's leg and she gave 
him a red ear of corn, signifying that she was to keep him in 
bread and he was to keep her in meat. Here the Indian trapped 
fur-bearing animals, and we still have our Beaver Brook* in the 



♦Now called Mill Brook. 

66 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

east part of the town, and Otter Brook in the west part of Dover, 
named for these fur-bearing animals. It has been said that the 
English expected to buy beaver skins from the Indians on their 
own terms, but the savages proved to be such keen traders that 
the struggle for self preservation developed the proverbial 
Yankee shrewdness. 

At Powisset and in the center of the town, on Pegan Hill and 
in West Dover, are found never failing springs of the purest 
water, where for generations the Indian while on the chase 
quenched his thirst, and sustained himself by eating parched corn 
and maple sugar. I like, when in a contemplative mood, to stand 
under the old oak on the Common — the only tree of the primeval 
forest that is left to us — and think of other days, of the Indians 
who have rested beneath its shade, of the scenes that have trans- 
pired in its presence. The first product of New England to have 
a commercial value was furs, which were largely bartered from 
the Indians. These furs found a ready market in England, and 
as this territory was a peculiar hunting ground of the Indians and 
only fifteen miles distant from the shipping point, we may believe 
that the pelts of fur-bearing animals taken on this territory were 
early shipped to England. In Great Brook, near Natick, as the 
records read, the Indians speared fish or caught them in rude 
nets. In neighboring ponds they fished through the ice in winter. 
In the beautiful valleys they killed the deer, the bear and the fox, 
and on the upland meadows dried and salted fish, which, with 
parched corn and maize, was stored in pits dug in the slopes 
perhaps of Pegan Hill, for winter use. 

The Narrows, between Dover and Sherborn, the most beauti- 
ful spot on Charles River, was called by the Indians "Dingle 
Hole," because they heard here by night a tinkling bell. Happily 
this name has been restored to the locality in recent years. 

In the woods the Indians snared the rabbit and partridge, and 
with the stone pestle still found in Dover fields, they pounded 
in hollowed stones* corn which had previously been soaked. In 
this work the pestle was often attached to a sapling which was 
bent over and worked up and down in pounding the corn. This 
contrivance required but little strength on the part of the squaw. 
From this practice it is believed that the English settlers got their 
idea of the well sweep. 

Here was a race, says Dr. Newton, with many known and un- 

♦A fine specimen of an Indian mortar can be seen on that portion 
of the Indian burial grounds at Natick, which has been set apart as 
a little park, through the efforts of the Wamsquon Burying Ground 
Association. 

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DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

known tribes of red men, women and children. They have lived 
and died, and we do not know for the most part where their 
graves are or what their history has been. No burying place of 
the Indian is found within the limits of this town and in excava- 
tions I have never heard of the remains of an Indian having been 
found or a grave opened. 

At South Natick there was an Indian burial ground which 
took in all the sloping land near the Eliot meeting house. The 
headstone of Takawampait, the Indian preacher, is still pre- 
served. In the collection of the South Natick Historical Society, 
may be seen beads, charms, Indian pipes and a kettle, which have 
been taken from Indian graves in the vicinity. 

Dover has long been noted, owing doubtless to the diversity of 
soil and elevation, for the beauty and variety of her flora, which 
has been the study of many botanists. Years after the Indians 
had been taught by the English to use herbs as medicines* they 
made long pilgrimages to this territory to gather plants, espe- 
cially in the valley of Noanet. 

Although the Indian Reservation at South Natick, known for 
many years as the Indian farm, adjoining the Dover line, was 
given up in the early thirties, yet the Indians continued to live 
there for many years after. My grandfather. Draper Smith, and 
Caleb Wight, both of Dover, purchased the estate. The sale was 
very distasteful to the Indians, a company of whom waited upon 
my grandfather. "You have bought our land away from us," 
said the spokesman as he advanced to lay violent hands upon my 
grandfather, who kept him at bay with a large goad-stick which 
he chanced to have in his hand. 

As my father spent many happy days on the Indian farm, 
when his father and Mr. Wight were gathering the products of 
the land, he used to fascinate me with stories of Indian life as he 
saw it, the making of baskets and bark pails, the building of birch 
bark canoes, the gathering of wild fruit and the Indian methods 
of hunting** and fishing. Here he saw them cook their great dish, 
a stew of all manner of flesh, fish and vegetables boiled in a com- 
mon pot and thickened with powdered nuts. Here he witnessed 
the baking of the ground nut which I remember he once cooked 
after the Indian fashion for his children. Here he gathered on 
Indian soil the beautiful Indian rose, still remembered by some, 
which a half century ago had been transplanted to neighboring 

•The Indians had cures for the bites of venomous snakes, but 
knew nothing of the practice of medicine. 

**rhe Indians had no animals except a mongrel breed of dogs. 

68 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

farms and carefully cultivated. The rose was a distinct variety 
which the Indians had cultivated for generations. I wish Mr. 
Montgomery of Waban Conservatory, Natick, could develop 
from this rose a new American Beauty. Here my father listened 
to stories of the skill of the medicine man, one of which I recall. 
It related to a white man who was ill and could get no relief. 
Consulting the medicine man, he was denied all food and at the 
appo nted time was suspended by his legs over a pan of hot milk, 
when a starved snake, tempted by the smell of the milk, pro- 
ceeded to crawl from the man's stomach and his life was saved. 

One summer Reuben Draper's best cow came home from the 
pasture nightly giving but little milk. A squaw being asked about 
it said she guessed the cow was being sucked by a black snake. A 
watch was set and it was soon discovered that the black snake 
was the squaw in question. 

The Indians were very fond of apples and in the earliest years 
of the'r settlement at South Natick set out many apple trees of 
which they were very proud. Bryant in his poem, "The Planting 
of the Apple Tree," has these prophetic lines : 

"And time shall waste this apple tree, 
Oh! when its aged branches throw 
Their shadows on the ground below. 
Shall fraud and force and iron will 
Oppress the weak and helpless still?" 

After its sale, the Indian farm yielded hundreds of bushels of 
apples, which were gathered and made into cider at Asa Wight's 
cider mill, which was not far distant from the Indian farm. 

The Indians traveled over the surrounding country selling bas- 
kets, spring cranberries and wild grapes in their season, sleeping 
wherever night overtook them, in barns or by firesides with their 
blankets wrapped around them and always receiving as a matter 
of course a breakfast from the farmer's wife in the morning. 
Some Indians worked for farmers, especially on stone work. 
Many of the stone walls on the Allen farm* on Pegan Hill were 
laid by the Indians. The well near the road on Dr. Porter's 
farm on Smith Street, which many will remember with its pic- 
turesque well sweep, was stoned by Indians. 

The Indians were superstitious and feared any natural phe- 
nomena that they could not understand. It is still related in the 
Allen family that during an eclipse of the sun, the Indians in the 
neighborhood of Pegan Hill gathered around the barn of Heze- 

•Now owned by Robert G. Fuller. 

69 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

kiah Allen, where they stood like statues while the eclipse lasted 
and then dispersed to their houses or wigwams. 

Less than three miles, as the bird flies, from the west part of 
Dover, was the old fortification in what is now Millis, where the 
early settlers in the vicinity, during King Philip's War, went for 
protection against the Indians. On land owned by the late Robert 
S. Minot on Smith Street was a small fortification which was 
removed by Draper Smith a century ago. The spot is still marked 
by a -patch of tansy which has grown there through the century. 
No one has ever been able to give the history of this structure. 
It was built of brick and white oak plank. It was probably 
erected about the time of King Philip's War, when the town of 
Dedham was voting that no one should move to a greater dis- 
tance than three miles from the meeting house. The small win- 
dows were glazed with the primitive diamond window pane, one 
of which is now found in the collection of the Dover Historical 
Society and was presented to the town as a nucleus for a histori- 
cal collection on the occasion of the celebration, in 1876, of the 
one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, 
and was the first gift made toward a historical collection in Dover. 
My grandfather used to tell the story, which had been related to 
him, how the Indians came one night and tried to surprise the 
family by imitating the grunting of the farmer's pigs, which they 
would have the inmates believe, had broken out of the pig pen. 
Instead of rushing out, the firearm was taken down, the window 
raised, and when the squealing pig was in the right position the 
gun was fired. The squealing ceased 

"And crimson drops at morning lay 
Amid the glimmering dew." 

In this way the Indian trail was traced for some distance through 
the woods. 

While Indians were living in Dedham, as neighbors to the 
white settlers, as late as 1650, as shown by the testimony of the 
Apostle Eliot, yet there are no localities, brooks or streams which 
now have Indian names within the present limits of the town. 
Wigwam Pond, the name given to her only sheet of water, simply 
signifies that the red man once lived on its shores. The Indians 
always selected as a bury'ng place, a spot near a running stream 
or pond, and so we find the Indian burying place in Dedham not 
far from Wigwam Pond. How long this spot was used as a 
burying place and how many Indians were buried there no man 
can tell. 

In other parts of the original territory of Dedham and in towns 

70 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

adjoining Dover, we find the following Indian names current: 
Tiot, the name of the Norwood parish ; Nahatan Field and 
Nehoiden Street, Needham ; Nahatan Street, Westwood ; Waban 
Pond, Waban Brook and Maugus Hill, Wellesley; Tom's Hill, 
Natick — a beautiful hill once owned by a celebrated Indian who 
went by the name of Captain Tom. The plain on which Natick 
stands was called Pegan Plain. Dug Pond, Natick, was formerly 
called by the Indians, Washamug. Old records show that Sher- 
born had her Pocasset Hill and Boggestow Brook. The valley of 
the Charles River, bordering Medfield on the west, was called 
Boggestow by the Indians ; there was also a territory half a 
mile east of Medfield village which was called Nantasket. 

The Indians had a trail through the forest from Dedham to 
South Natick. They crossed over Strawberry Hill and forded 
Noanet Brook, Clay Brook and Great Brook. With bow and 
arrow in hand, they hunted the wild game "in upland glade and 
glen," and gathered in summer time the wild fruits by the way 
and in autumn the dropping nuts. 

Roger Williams, the apostle of soul liberty, driven from his 
home at Salem, after founding Rhode Island, is believed by some 
historical scholars to have come to this immediate vicinity, either 
in what is now Wellesley or Dover, to meet his wife and children. 
The Indians conducted his family through the wilderness from 
Salem, and on this historic ground they were united. 

Again Roger Williams contended that the charter of Massachu- 
setts was invalid, since it was not based on any purchase from 
the Indians. As President Faunce has said: "The ethical teacher, 
judging events in the 'quiet and still air of delightful studies,' 
must admit that Roger Williams could well defend his position. 
Our relations with the Indians of America are justified on bio- 
logical rather than ethical grounds. We look back today on far 
more than a 'century of dishonor' and may not examine too 
closely our title-deeds." 

In closing, let us briefly consider what the Indian gave the 
white man. On his arrival here he taught him how to fertilize 
the land with fish and grow maize which he found under intelli- 
gent cultivation, and in three hundred years no new method of 
cultivation has been introduced. Corn is still planted when "the 
leaf of the oak is as b'g as a mouse's ear" ; yellow pumpkins still 
adorn the fields and the bean entwines the corn stalk as of old. 

The English settler learned from the Indian to cook corn in a 
variety of ways, and many dishes are still called by Indian names, 
as samp, hominy and succotash. The English settlers also 

71 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

learned to bake beans from the Indian. Green corn on the cob 
was a favorite dish with the Indian, and for this purpose a suc- 
cession of crops was grown, as now. Indian pudding boiled in a 
bag, and hasty pudding made of Indian meal and water, with the 
never-to-be-forgotten Johnnycake were the first desserts put upon 
the Englishman's table, all of which are of Indian origin and 
especially Indian dishes. In the home the Indian taught the white 
man how to use the pine knot as candle wood and how to make 
sugar from the rock maple tree. It was an Indian custom to 
burn over the woods in November to destroy the underbrush ; this 
made good fodder in the woodlands where the trees were thin, 
and in the spring the grass grew rapidly on the burnt ground. 
The Dedham settlers kept up this practice and without doubt 
burned over this territory annually as "it was the fittest place to 
turn cattle which the town had." It was the Indian who taught 
the white man to smoke and invented the pipe which is now the 
pleasure and consolation of millions. The Indian used the pipe, 
as we all know, in their important transactions. Thus the pipe of 
peace is indispensable to the ratification of a treaty, and smoking 
together has even greater significance of friendship than eating 
together has among nations. 

It was the Indian who first furnished the Colonists with a 
medium of exchange, in his wampum, and thus enabled them to 
transact business. It was the Indian who taught the white man 
how to build the birch-bark canoe, and thus made water travel 
possible. He taught him how to clothe his feet in the moccasin, 
the best shoe for pioneer life that has ever been invented, and 
how to walk over the deep snow in winter on snowshoes. Again 
in the Indians' "Great Spirit" we have the most comprehensible 
definition of Deity that has been given us. The Indians believed, 
says General Miles, that the Great Spirit had given them this 
beautiful country with all its natural resources, advantages and 
blessings, for their home; with deep emotion and profound rev- 
erence they spoke of the sun as their father and the earth as th^ir 
mother. Nature they worshipped ; upon it they depended, with 
it they communed, and cherished it with deepest affection. 

And so I believe we do well in permanently commemorating 
the aborigines who made this territory a "peculiar hunting place." 

The Chairman: The original poem, written by Mr. William 
H. Gardner, will be read by Miss Esther Bond, who is descended 
in the eighth generation from Henry Wilson, first white settler 
on the territory of Dover. On her maternal side her ancestors 
have all been born on the farm settled by Henry Wilson in 1640. 

72 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

ORIGINAL POEM. By William H. Gardner. 

"PEACE TO YOUR ASHES, O RED MEN." 

Peace to your ashes, O Red men, 
Hunters and warriors of yore! 
Gone to the Great Spirit's Wigwams 
Built by some heavenly shore. 
Once o'er these ranges you hunted. 
Trapping the rabbit and quail. 
Shooting the deer with your arrows, 
With aim that never did fail. 
Stealthily stalking the forest. 
Tracking the bear and his mate, 
Ending the chase with great bonfires, 
Turning it into a fete. 
Sometimes with tom-toms abeating 
Tomahawks waving on high, 
Solemn braves turned into firebrands, 
Dancing 'neath this same blue sky. 
Then with your war-whoops resounding, 
Painted and feathered you went. 
Vowing to scalp "The Pale Faces," 
On direst vengeance bent. 

Peace to your ashes, O Red men, 

Now is the past all forgot; 

And in your mem'ry this Tablet, 

Place we here on this dear spot. 

Time maketh clearer man's vision. 

Faults by and by fade away. 

Virtues at first not discern-ed, 

Stand out now clear as the day. 

Each generation grows broader. 

More light is shed on the past, 

True greatness ne'er is forgotten. 

True worth forever will last. 

Why should we blame you, O Red Men, 

Coming and stealing your home; 

Driving you out of your wigwam, 

Into the thicket to roam. 

With naught a mention of wampum. 

Taking your old hunting place. 

Surely you Red Men had reason. 

For hating the cruel Pale Face. 

Staunch was the friendship you proffered. 

And when 'twas misunderstood, 

Friends were then changed in a moment. 

To foes in the moor-land and wood. 

Peace to your ashes. O Red Men, 
If you can, — pray now forgive. 
Here is a Tablet we're placing. 
That through The Ages will live. 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Hear ye, O spirits of warriors, 
Wraiths of the sachem and brave. 
Never the white man will blame you, 
That you would not be their slave. 
Hear ye, Noanet and Pegan, 
Kings of the Red Men of yore, 
Tell of this day to your People, 
Safe on the Great Spirit's shore. 
Many great nations are slandered. 
Motives oft misunderstood, 
But time bringeth them justice, 
Showing they wrought for the Good. 
Tell them, O Chiefs of your People, 
"Light" shineth brighter each year, 
Justice and Mercy grow stronger. 
Faith is now mightier than fear. 

The Chairman : It gives me great pleasure to introduce a suc- 
cessor of the Rev. John Eliot in the Roxbury Church, a gentle- 
man v^ho probably knows more about the Apostle to the Indians 
than any other living man, the Rev. James DeNormandie, D, D., 
of the First Church in Roxbury. 

ADDRESS. By Rev. James De Normandie, D. D. 

JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS. 

Mr. President and Friends: Let me begin by congratulating 
you that you took the initiative, and have carried to so successful 
and pleasing a conclusion, the erection of this tablet, to com- 
memorate the incidents of your early history, for all these matters 
become more and more interesting to each succeeding generation. 

I am specially glad of anything which is associated with the 
Apostle Eliot, who as the years go on, stands out as the most 
prominent character in our early annals, — so that when Dean 
Stanley came to this country and was visiting Phillips Brooks, 
the Bishop asked him what places he wished to see, and the Dean 
replied, "1 want most of all to see the spot where the Pilgrims 
landed, and where the Apostle Eliot preached." 

About twenty-five miles north of London is the little village of 
Widford. In the dingy and worn register of the parish, one 
reads in letters quite distinct, "Anno Diu : 1604, John Elliott, the 
Sonne of Bennett Elliott was baptized, the fifte daye of Auguste, 
in the yeere of our Lord God 1604." The village, with its houses 
of thatched or red-tiled roofs, is very much as it was at the birth 
of Eliot, and I do not wonder that its inhabitants were glad to 
go to this new world of whose riches they had heard such glow- 
ing reports, and where they might share in founding a new 

74 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Kingdom, and where they might have the privilege of persecut- 
ing, as they had been persecuted. 

After Eliot graduated from Jesus' College of the University at 
Cambridge he made up his mind to come with a number of his 
neighbors, and promised, if they so desired, to be their minister 
in the plantation at Roxbury. He landed in Boston Harbor in 
November, 1631, and after ministering for awhile to the First 
Church, in Boston, was ordained as minister of the First 
Church in Roxbury, in November, 1632, and remained its faith- 
ful and devoted pastor for over fifty-eight years, and he and his 
successor embraced one hundred and nineteen years of the his- 
tory of that Church. 

His records are very interesting as showing how he watched 
over his flock, and wrote down just what he thought of them. 
How I should like to do this, if I were sure it would not be read 
for two hundred years. 

One expression which he uses over and over again to describe 
the good persons of his church is that he or she died "leaving a 
good savor of goodlyness behind." 

"Valentine Prentice lived a godly life, and died leaving a good 
savor of godlyness behind him." 

"The wife of William Talmudge was a godly woman, and died 
and left a gracious savor behind her." 

"Brother Griggs lay in a long affliction of sickness, and shined 
like gold in it." 

"Old Mother Roote lived not only till past use, but till more 
tedious than a child." 

He was not afraid to put down their weaknesses or sins. 

Here is his note on a reprobate character who removed to Con- 
necticut, "Where he lived several years without giving any good 
satisfaction to the consciences of the saints." 

Here is his watchfulness over trade: "The wife of William 
Webb. She followed baking, and through her covetous mind she 
made light weight after many admonitions, flatly denying that 
after she had weighed her dough she never nimmed off bits from 
each loaf ; which yet four witnesses testified to be a common, if 
not a constant practice ; for all which grosse sins she was ex- 
communicated. But afterwards she was reconciled to the 
church, and lived Christianly and dyed comfortably." 

How many are there today, do you think among us who make 
light weight and short measure, but instead of being excommuni- 
cated, are pillars in the churches ? 

The Apostle was always deeply interested in the education of 

75 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

the young. He began in his church the first Sunday School of 
which we have any account in the New World. And what kind 
of a Sunday School do you think it was? All the male youth 
were to stay in the church after the close of the second long 
service, and the services sometimes began about ten o'clock in 
the morning, or earlier; then an intermission, and then another 
service lasting until three or four o'clock. When the boys were 
all gathered together, the elders were to examine them as to their 
remembrance of the two sermons of the day, and any questions 
from the Catechism. All the female youth were to gather in 
some suitable place on Monday, when the elders were to examine 
them as to their remembrance of the two sermons of the day be- 
fore, and any questions from the Catechism. What if all of you 
young persons were subjected to such an examination? Would 
not the first answer from the most of you be : "We did not hear 
the sermons at all ; we were not at church ?" 

In 1645 Eliot established the Roxbury Latin School, a school to 
fit boys for our neighboring University, and which has continued 
until now — and never more flourishing than now, — one of the 
very best fitting schools for the University in the country. 

He also founded a school in Jamaica Plain, still carried on. 
Wherever he went he made a plea for good schools, for a good 
school to be encouraged in every plantation of this country. And 
with his colleague, Weld, and Mather, the minister of Dorchester, 
he helped prepare the "Bay Psalm Book," the first book printed 
in this country. 

But the chief work of Eliot, and that for which he is called the 
Apostle, and which still remains the wonder and admiration of all 
who read about it, was his labors among the Indians, 

He had been over his church about ten years, mingling with the 
red men, when it came to him that his mission was to learn the 
Indian language, and preach the Gospel to them in their own 
tongue, and translate the Bible for them to read. He felt that 
the Indians were a part of the human race, that they were the 
children of God, and the Gospel was for them as much as for the 
English. He went all about here preaching to them, whenever he 
could gather them in their wigwams, or under wide-spreading 
trees, on foot, or on horseback, at Newton and Natick and Pon- 
kapog, down as far as the Cape, out as far as Brookfield, up to 
the very border of New Hampshire, often with no shelter, wet to 
the skin all day long, halting to rest at night, wringing the water 
from his stockings, with no fire on winter days, hungry and 
weary, he counted it all joy if only he could lead the red man to a 
higher life. 

7(> 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Then he would come to his home, just back of where the Peo- 
ples Bank now is, corner of Dudley and Washington Streets, and 
into the long nights, with the light of only a tallow candle, he 
toiled over his translation of the Scriptures. The story of his 
missionary labors has gone throughout Christendom. 

It would be interesting if he had left on record some of the 
mistakes he made in his translations into that strange and most 
difficult, imperfect, unformed, unmanageable as any dialect on 
earth, — but he was too busy to think of any humor about it. But 
we have one example. When he wanted to translate a passage in 
Judges, "the mother of Sisera looked out at the window and cried 
through the lattice," he could find no word for lattice. He asked 
one after another; he described it as a framework with open 
spaces, as netting, as wicker. At last they gave him a long, un- 
pronounceable word, and years after, when he understood the 
language better, he laughed to find he had translated it, "The 
mother of Sisera looked out at the window and cried through an 
eel-pot. 

The Apostle Eliot was distingliished everywhere for his charity. 
Out of his scanty salary he gave several hundred pounds for in- 
dividual, educational, and religious aid. His charity, it was said, 
was a star of the first magnitude in the constellation of his 
graces. A little story, which you may have heard, always must 
be told to illustrate this trait. He was making a pastoral visit 
one day on a poor widow. The church treasurer had just paid 
him his quarterly salary, tied up with many knots in a handker- 
chief, that he might be sure to take it home. As he was about to 
leave, he took out the money to give her something, but the knots 
were hard and the Indian boys were waiting in his study to be 
taught, so he threw it all into her lap, saying, "There, dear, I 
doubt not the Lord meant it all for you." 

So he went on, faithful in his own parish ministry, devoted 
day and night to translating the Scriptures, and to preaching to 
the Indians, until with slow and feeble steps he could hardly get 
up the hill on which his church was situated, and as death crept 
upon him when he was past eighty, a friend asked him how he 
was, he replied : "Alas, I have lost everything; my understanding 
leaves me; my memory fails me; but I thank God my charity 
holds out; I find that rather grows than fails." 

The Indians hereabout have all disappeared ; no one can read 
his Indian Bible, — the work of so many years of hard study, — 
and you may ask, were all these toils of the scholar and mission- 
ary in vain? Was this life a failure? Is any life spent in such 

77 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

unselfish service a failure or a waste? Then this universe is a 
failure. 

And are you tempted sometimes to think that saintship belongs 
to poetry, or painting, or to the far past ? Then I say, whenever 
you visit the scenes of the Apostle's labors, at Natick, or Newton, 
or throughout Massachusetts; when you go past the Roxbury 
Latin School, or the school at Jamaica Plain, or the old church in 
Eliot Square, or his grave in the burying ground at the corner of 
Washington and Eustis streets, call to mind the life of the Apostle 
Eliot and know that the call to saintship has not ceased, and its 
possibilities have not died out. 

The Chairman : A hymn has been written for this occasion by 
Miss Kate Louise Brown, and it will now be sung by some of our 
Dover school children. 

ORIGINAL HYMN. By Miss Kate Louise Brown. 

God of the forest grand, 

God of the smiling plain; 

God of the glowing, friendly sun 

The healing silver rain. 

God of the human heart 

Alike in high or low 
We lift to Thee our grateful praise 

Our thanks before we go. 
Thine was the Red Man's power, 

Thine is our care and skill; 
They heard Thy voice in storm or calm, 

We pray to do Thy Will. 
So, children of one God 

Within one Love we live. 
Forgive our blindness and our strife, 

As we all wrong forgive. 

The Chairman : I will now ask the Rev. Edward S. Sanborn 
to deliver a benediction. 

BENEDICTION. By Rev. Edward S. Sanborn. 

May the blessing of Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, rest 
upon us as we separate, and continue with us. May we cherish 
the lessons of the hour. May we have more of the spirit of Thy 
servant and apostle, John Eliot, whose was the spirit of his 
Master and ours, the Lord Jesus Christ. May we do what we can 
to bring in His Kingdom ; to give light to those that sit in dark- 
ness, to give relief to the oppressed, and to send salvation to the 
whole earth, and unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the 
only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

78 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 



The Dover Historical Society takes pleasure in presenting- to 
the residents of Dover this volume of proceedings which contains 
many facts of local history which would otherwise have been 
lost. This publication has been made possible through the sub- 
scriptions received from those named below, who are really the 
donors of this little book, through the medium of the Dover His- 
torical Society. 

It has been a pleasure to the subscribers to make this contribu- 
tion in recognition of the obligations of the present generation to 
the previous inhabitants of the town ; who defended their homes, 
fought for their country, established existing institutions, and 
two centuries ago built with bended backs and unscientific meth- 
ods, the roads we now enjoy. 

Too many accept these blessings without a thought of the sacri- 
fices of those who created them, or of the obligations that rest 
upon them, other than the paying of their annual tax bill. 

"We are living on the labors of past generations. Every per- 
son who has preceded us has added something to the structure of 
the Republic just as surely as the coral insect has builded himself 
into the reef. If, in most cases this work has been sound and 
true and fit to serve as a base for something better, we ought to 
keep in mind the obscure toilers who strove and wrought and 
died." 

SUBSCRIBERS. 

Mrs. R. N. Allen Walter P. Henderson 
William Hewson Baltzell Eben Higgins 

Charles S. Bean Ward N. Hunt 

George C. Chickering George D. Hall 

James H. Chickering Rev. William R. Lord 

George K. Clarke Norfolk Hunt Club 

E. K. Dandrow Pokonoket Club 

Arthur E. Davis Mrs. Robert K, Rogers 

Robert G. Fuller Allen F. Smith 

Edward W. Grew Frank Smith 

James C. Hopkins Ralph B. Williams 



79 



APPENDIX TO MR. SMITH'S HISTORICAL 
ADDRESS. 

There was no systematic attempt at higher education until 
after the opening of the railroads to Dover in 1862, although in 
the years that had passed many young men and young women 
had attended out-of-town academies and young ladies' semina- 
ries for a few months after completing their attendance upon the 
district school. 

In 1820 the town appropriated $450 for schools, and in 1860 
she appropriated only $700, but in the next forty years, with but 
little increase in population, she increased her appropriation many 
fold. 

With the opening in Needham of Harvey's Young Ladies' 
Seminary and the Oakland Hall School for Boys, pupils com- 
menced to go out of town to school, — a practice which has been 
kept up to the present time. The following Dover pupils attended 
Mr. Harvey's School: Sarah Dunn, Helen Dunn, Anna L. 
Smith, Emma Howe, Ellen Draper. 

Oakland Hall School: Charles Dunn, John A. Sullivan, H. 
Ephraim Wilson, P. Allen Bachelder, Frank Baldwin. 

Needham High School : Alice J. Jones, Inez L, Jones, Anna 
Howe, George Dunn, Marietta W. Bailey, Josephine Bliss, Benja- 
min Bliss, Anna Whiting, Ida Mann, Nancy Wilson, Ida C. 
Whiting, Emma Hatch. 

Newton High School: Caroline A. Whiting. 

Medfield High School: William F. Shumway. 

Rice's Academy, Newton Centre: I. Henry Howe, Roger 
Battelle : 

Miss Davis' School, Charles River: Abbie Baldwin. 

Jamaica Plain High School : Eva Farrington. 

Miss Ireland's Private School, Boston : Eleanor S. Sturtevant, 
Belle Sturtevant. 

Dedham High School : Mary E. Farrington, Sarah R. Farring- 
ton. 

Rev. C. S. Locke's Private School, Westwood: Lottie Scott, 
Julia Farrington. 

The following persons are recalled — there are no records on 
the subject — as having attended school out of town in the years 

80 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

preceding 1860. While many names will doubtless be found 
omitted from this list, to the disappointment of friends, yet it is 
a matter of congratulation that so large a number of persons are 
still remembered as having gone out of town to school 

Allen School, Concord : Lucy Mann, Betsey Richards. 

Charlestown Female Seminary : Betsey Richards, Caroline Bat- 
telle, Mary Barden, Maria Bigelow, Ann Battelle, Parthena G. 
Jones, Ann Jannett Battelle. 

First Middle School, Dedham: Sarah E. Howe, Mary W. 
Howe. 

Bradford Academy : Ann Harding, Betsey Mann. 

The Misses Draper's School, Hartford: Elizabeth Newell, 
Martha Newell. 

Miss Wilbur's Boarding School, Newport: Harriet Wight. 

Miss Sanger's School, South Natick: Dorcas Chickering. 

Gannett School, Boston: Irene F. Sanger. 

Abbott Academy: Ellen Bigelow. 

Wheaton Seminary : Lucy M. Richards, Jennie A. Richards. 

Allen School, West Newton: S. Eudora Shumway, Benjamin 
Newell, 

Oread Institute, Worcester : Lizzie Newell. 

Leicester Academy : George Chickering. 

Worcester Academy: Allen E. Battelle. 

Stone's English and Classical School : George L. Howe, 
Ithamar Whiting, Levi A. Talbot. 

Framingham Academy : Otis Chickering, John Sanger. 

Holliston Academy: Amos W. Shumway, Nancy E. Draper, 
Louisa B. Howe, Lucy L. Chickering, Francis D. Bigelow, Eliza 
J. Mann, Mary J. Mann, Eleanor Whiting, Benjam.in A. Fuller. 

Burgess School, Dedham : Ephraim Wilson, Edwin Wilson. 

Old Eliot School Roxbury: Abner L. Smith. 

Franklin Academy: Rebecca Richards, Daniel F. Mann, 

Normal Schools in their early establishment had the following 
Dover young ladies enrolled : Parthena G. Jones, Harriet Chick- 
ering, Maria Adams, Lucy Chickering, Carrie Kenrick, Emily 
Chickering. 

The following names should be added to the list published in 
the History of Dover — page 220 — of residents of the town who 
have attended college: Otis Chickering, Lawrence Scientific 
School, Harvard, 1858-1860; Willard Mayne Chandler, Massa- 
chusetts Agricultural College, 1878; Benjamin Pierce Cheney, 
Harvard, 1890; Charles Paine Cheney, Harvard, 1892; James 
Henry Chickering, Massachusetts Agricultural College, 1901 ; 

81 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES 

Frank Abel Bean, Freshman, Brown University, 1902; Georgia 
Elizabeth Thompson, Boston University, 1910; Henry Davis 
Minot, Sophomore, Harvard ; Robert Sedgwick Minot, Jr., Fresh- 
man, Harvard. The following are now — 1911 — college students: 
Evalyn Dolly Higgins, Senior, Boston University ; Bertrand Cole 
Wheeler, Senior, Dartmouth ; Allen Thorpe Wheeler, Junior, 
Dartmouth ; Grace Wight Thompson, Special, Boston Univer- 
sity; Wayland Manning Minot, Junior, Harvard. 



82 



ADVERTISEMENT 

The following publications relating to the history of Dover 
have been issued : 

History of Dover, cloth, 354 pages, 2 maps, 20 illustrations. 
Price, $1.50, net; postage 18 cents additional. Address, Town 
Clerk, Dover, Massachusetts. 

Dover Folk-Lore, 114 pages. Price, cloth, $1.00 postpaid; 
paper, 50 cents, postpaid. Address the author, Miss Alice J. 
Jones, Franklin, Mass. 

The Founders of the First Parish, cloth, 8vo., 1 map. Il- 
lustrated with twelve pictures of the houses standing in 1908, 
which were built before the Revolution. Price, $1.00 postpaid. 
Address, Clerk, First Parish Church, Dover, Massachusetts. 

Publications Dover Historical Society, Dover, Massachu- 
setts. 

Dover's First Old Home Day (1903), paper, 55 pages. 
Price, 25 cents, postpaid. 

Proceedings, Dedication Sawin Memorial Building 
(1907), paper, three illustrations, 40 pages. Price, 25 cents, 
postpaid. 

Proceedings, 125th Anniversary of the Incorporation of 
Dover (1909), cloth, 70 pages. Price, 50 cents, postpaid; paper, 
25 cents, postpaid. 

Proceedings, Dedication Soldiers' Monument (1910), New 
Grammar School Building (1910), Unveiling Headstones 
Revolutionary Soldiers (1911), Dedication of Bronze Tab- 
let TO the Memory of the Indians (1912) ; 1 Vol., 84 pages, 
four illustrations. Price, cloth, 50 cents, postpaid ; paper, 25 
cents, postpaid. 

Address, Secretary Dover Historical Society. 



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